Is China Breaking With Russia Over Ukraine?

[Michie]

China’s position has subtly shifted since the Russian invasion began, but the partnership with Russia is too important for Beijing to truly abandon its ally.


During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first trip abroad since January 2020, the most closely watched development was not his interactions with officials from his host countries, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Rather, the world’s attention was on his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand – the first in-person meeting between the two since Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24.

The last time Xi and Putin shook hands was on February 4 in Beijing, where Putin was attending the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games. Back then, their joint statement famously declared that “friendship between the two States has no limits.”

Much has changed since the first week of February. Most notably, Russia is actively at war with Ukraine after sending masses of troops across the border just three weeks after the Putin-Xi meeting in Beijing – and the war is going badly for Moscow. Meanwhile, Russia is under unprecedented sanctions from the U.S., European Union, Japan, Australia, and others, and China’s perceived support for Putin is taking a steep toll on Beijing’s image in Europe.

Given that, how has Xi’s rhetoric in his meetings with Putin shifted?

Continued below.
Is China Breaking With Russia Over Ukraine?

 

[mindlight]

China’s position has subtly shifted since the Russian invasion began, but the partnership with Russia is too important for Beijing to truly abandon its ally.


During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first trip abroad since January 2020, the most closely watched development was not his interactions with officials from his host countries, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Rather, the world’s attention was on his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand – the first in-person meeting between the two since Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24.

The last time Xi and Putin shook hands was on February 4 in Beijing, where Putin was attending the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games. Back then, their joint statement famously declared that “friendship between the two States has no limits.”

Much has changed since the first week of February. Most notably, Russia is actively at war with Ukraine after sending masses of troops across the border just three weeks after the Putin-Xi meeting in Beijing – and the war is going badly for Moscow. Meanwhile, Russia is under unprecedented sanctions from the U.S., European Union, Japan, Australia, and others, and China’s perceived support for Putin is taking a steep toll on Beijing’s image in Europe.

Given that, how has Xi’s rhetoric in his meetings with Putin shifted?

Continued below.
Is China Breaking With Russia Over Ukraine?

No China is still sitting firmly on the fence. It needs Russian minerals and energy and moving forward, in the short to medium term, this arrangement might even give it a competitive advantage, with cheaper energy than Europe has access to. But China still benefits from Western trade and technology and needs its economy to keep growing as it continues important internal developments of the shift from country to the city, from third world peasants to first world technology hubs and manufacturing centers. Also, its energy supply links remain too vulnerable to risk a confrontation with the West.

One result of a weakened Russia is clearly an elevated China with more power over Russia and its resources than Putin might have liked before this war began.

My hope is that China will provide some restraint over Putin on the use of tactical nukes which would break the protocol that has been in place since Hiroshima and Nagasaki that they should never be used in aggression. Their use will make the whole world a much more dangerous place and jeopardize Chinese long term interests.