Date of publication: 12 Apr 2022 • 12 hours ago • 6 minutes reading • 112 comments Chinese President Xi Jinping may have seen Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as a measure of how the international community, and especially the EU and the US, are doing , they would react to a jolt of world order, says one observer. Photo by Sputnik / Aleksey Druzhinin / Kremlin via Reuters
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Civilians were shot in execution style. Mass graves. Mobile crematoria. Victims who died with their hands tied behind their backs.
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Much of the world’s media this week was filled with grim images and testimonies suggesting that Russia is systematically killing non-combatants in Ukraine, elements of war crimes that have brought a condemnation chord to Moscow. The message from China, however, was rather different. The People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s leading organ, warned on Thursday not to jump to conclusions about the atrocities, and published an article accusing the United States of turning the “bloody suffering” of war victims into “golden opportunities for profit.” A comment the day before in the party’s aggressive Global Times said that NATO had used the conflict for its own purposes and was “revived by drinking the blood of war”.
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It matched the pattern of Beijing media and official announcements since the invasion began, with China refusing to criticize Russia and largely parroting its narrative of a limited “military operation” necessitated by the incessant pushing the US-led alliance to the east. Sorry, but this video failed to load. With Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin recently proclaiming a “borderless” friendship, the question arises: what exactly is Beijing’s policy of largely turning a blind eye to Moscow’s sins? And with access to critical markets in the West potentially at stake, where will this hands-on approach lead as the war continues? “This is really the wild card of the whole affair,” said Arne Kislenko, a professor of international relations at the University of Toronto. “One of the long-term consequences is the Chinese connection – what China is doing and how it sees it.”
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Experts suggest that the strategy is based on both pragmatic geopolitics and ideology. Neglect as Russia launches an unexpected war in Europe is a “huge advantage” for China, distracting the US and its allies from a long overdue shift to China and East Asia. At the same time, Beijing is showing solidarity with a compatriot of the authoritarian regime as it confronts the liberal democracies of the West and especially its aspiring rival America. But China may also have underestimated what Putin had in mind and tried second thoughts – “buyer repentance” in Kislenko’s words – as the barbarity of the invasion was revealed. Whether Beijing will provide military assistance may be the most critical question and is more a matter of debate. Given the prospect of sanctions from countries whose markets keep China’s economy in turmoil, Xi is unlikely to follow this path, some analysts say. Others argue that Russia’s success is so crucial to Beijing that it will feel compelled to act if it is the founder of Moscow’s war effort.
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Gordon Holden, the former director of Canada’s East Asia Office for Global Affairs, said he agreed with US intelligence that Putin had warned Xi during their meeting at the start of the Winter Olympics about the invasion. China has long advocated belief in the sovereignty of all nations and non-interference in their internal affairs. But it would have seen the war in Ukraine as a diversion for the West, diverting its attention from China’s most powerful and important adversary, Houlden said. “It’s a huge advantage,” said the honorary director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta. “This is a significant step in the right direction for the United States and its military in Europe.” “The reality is that the US presence in the Middle East and even in Europe is the nanny of the forces available in the Western Pacific.”
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Standing by Russia is also in China’s long-term military interests. In the event of war with the West, Russia would be a critical partner, providing long, peaceful borders when China fears encirclement and a stable source of food and energy, Holden said. Xi could have described Putin’s adventure in Ukraine as a “water test”, a measure of how the international community, and in particular the EU and the United States, would react to a global upheaval, Kislenko said. More specifically, China probably hoped that the invasion would show “the incompetence of the West,” he said. “I think China is taking advantage of the moment to shape its own worldview,” said the University of Toronto professor. “This is a little test balloon for them, they see how people respond to a big offense.”
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But beyond realpolitik’s goals of keeping the West afloat and maintaining good relations with a key strategic partner, China sees Russia as also an important ideological ally, analysts say. As another powerful authoritarian nation, Russia is helping to confront the United States and its liberal-democratic allies in the struggle for global ideological sovereignty. Condemnation of the invasion would undermine this front. In their most famous joint statement at the Olympics in early February, not exactly three weeks before the invasion began, Xi and Putin criticized anonymous countries for promoting their vision of democracy to others, saying “such attempts at hegemony are serious threats to global and regional peace and stability. “
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The statement criticized NATO’s further development with “ideological Cold War approaches” and US-led blocs in the Asia-Pacific region. The friendship of the two nations “has no limits, there are no” forbidden “areas of cooperation”, the document adds. Russian President Vladimir Putin examines a military honor guard in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2018. Photo by Greg Baker – Pool / POOL / AFP via Getty Images / File Neighbors form, in a sense, a partnership of the world’s top non-democratic nations, Houlden said. “They share a similar view of how the West wants to promote this Western version of democracy,” said Juan Wang, a policy professor at McGill University with a focus on China. That said, Beijing may have been taken aback by the scale and ferocity of the Russian attack. Holden notes that China reiterated early Russian claims that the cities would not be targeted, while 6,000 Chinese nationals remained in Ukraine and had to be evacuated as soon as the danger became clear – after the start of the war.
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The West’s unity and determination to respond to the invasion – and not its expected incompetence – probably “surprised” Beijing as well, Kislenko said. And this surprise can be reflected in how China responded, in addition to rhetoric in the state media. China abstained from UN proposals criticizing Russia and opposed a vote this week to suspend its partner from the UN human rights council. But at the same time, Xi has not doubled his “boundless” friendship commitment, nor has he actively helped Russia circumvent sanctions, Houlden said. The Chinese president actually lived quietly for Moscow, Wang said. He noted that China had initially allowed the ruble to fall, refused to release Russian reserves in Chinese yuan, failed to supply Moscow with spare parts for US and European airplanes, and cut off loans to Russia from Asian banks. Infrastructure Investment.
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“Can we really say that China supports Russia?” asked Professor McGill. “Pay attention to what China does rather than what it says.” However, the question remains whether Beijing would go so far as to provide arms or other military assistance to Russia if it gets even worse in Ukraine. The worse things get to Putin, in fact, the more likely his friend Xi is to step up his support, says Jude Blanchette, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in a Washington Post commentary. Beijing would see a Russian defeat as a threat to its own security and its ability to compete with the United States, and “it simply cannot allow that to happen,” Blanchett said. Jacob Kovalio, an East Asia specialist and professor of history at Carleton University, agreed that Canada and other Western nations should be prepared to impose sanctions on China when it moves to actively escalate Russia’s war. But other …
