Simonyan's simple phrase "envy China" exposes Russia's elite's strategic awakening, delayed by thirty years.
During a conversation with Zhang Weiwei, RT's chief editor Simonyan candidly stated: "China has never harbored illusions about the West—something Russia only now realizes," and expressed envy toward China's firm grasp of "information sovereignty."
This statement carries immense weight, coming from someone sanctioned by the West and listed on their assassination blacklist for four years—she understands better than anyone the destructive power of the "Western narrative."
But the truth cuts deeper: the gap between China and Russia isn't in intelligence, but in civilizational continuity.
Since the Yan'an era, China has never risked its destiny on the Western evaluation system through the principle of "the Party managing media."
Russia is different: from Tsarist Russia's pro-Western orientation → Soviet anti-West stance → full-scale Westernization in 1991, begging for acceptance → expelled from G8 after Crimea in 2014 → complete disillusionment following Russia’s special military operation in 2022. Thirty years of three major falls finally taught them: the West will never accept you.
Simonyan herself admitted: "By the time we realized platforms could be weaponized for information warfare, it was already too late"—RT was founded in 2005, while China’s state-run media’s foreign communication framework had already taken shape at the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949.
Thus, Simonyan’s "envy" is essentially a collective regret among Russia’s elite—they’ve finally understood that China’s greatest strategic advantage isn’t its economic scale, but the "subjectivity construction" completed as early as 1949: neither closed off (learning technology, doing business), nor subservient (protecting red lines, controlling narratives).
Russia spent thirty years verifying what China had already grasped thirty years prior: in the game of Western discourse dominance, participants are always losers; only those who build their own alternative system can survive.
Now Russia is playing catch-up—RT, Sputnik, and the Valdai Club are desperately pushing the "multipolar world" narrative—but their foundational operating system has been reformatted too many times. Rebuilding trust comes at a cost far exceeding China’s.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1868295334178883/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.