The Economist January 29th 2022 China 51HowChinaseeswarinUkraine
C
hina’s relationswith Russia are the strongest they have been
for 70 years. When President Xi Jinping welcomes Vladimir
Putin, the Russian leader he calls his “best friend”, to a planned
summit just before the Beijing Winter Olympics open on February
4th, powerful interests will bind the two men. China has capital to
invest, technology to sell and an evergrowing appetite for oil, gas
and other commodities. Russia’s economy, though ailing, com
plements China’s, offering natural resources that can be supplied
via pipelines and railways which are—in happy contrast with mar
itime supply routes—immune to blockade by foreign navies. A
sense of history unites the leaders. Both see a world order being re
shaped by American weariness and selfdoubt, creating chances
to test and divide the democratic West. Chinese and Russian dip
lomats and propaganda organs relay and amplify parallel narra
tives about the benefits of ironfisted order over Americanstyle
dysfunction. Joint military exercises demonstrate growing trust.
In a recent speech in Australia aimed at rallying “freedomlov
ing democracies”, Britain’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, described
China and Russia as aligned and “emboldened in a way we haven’t
seen since the cold war”. In Washington commentators suggest
that China and Russia see a shared interest in a Russian armed ad
venture in Ukraine that tests President Joe Biden’s resolve and
finds it wanting. Some go further, arguing that Mr Xi might watch
an unchallenged Russian attack on Ukraine and conclude that he
can safely invade Taiwan, the democratic, selfruled island of 23m
people that China claims for its own. In this telling, China’s scru
ples about Ukraine mostly involve timing. An American news ser
vice recently claimed that Mr Xi asked Mr Putin not to attack dur
ing the Olympics, citing unnamed diplomats. China’s embassy in
Moscow called that report “a hoax and a provocation”.
These being important questions, Chaguan sought the views of
Chinese scholars who specialise in Russia. They call it ignorant to
imagine that Communist Party bosses might endorse attacks on
Ukraine, let alone see in it a trial run for an invasion of Taiwan.
True, Chinese scholars usually grumble when foreigners doubt
that China is anything other than a peaceloving giant. Such aca
demics are also dutybound to reject comparisons between for
eign invasions and an assault on Taiwan, whose fate China deemsa domestic question. More convincingly, Chinese experts sound
sincerely insulted by the idea that conflict in Ukraine would set a
precedent for something as grave as war over Taiwan. They do not
hide their belief that Russia simply does not matter as much to
America as China does. Indeed, they concede that China returns
the favour, thinking more about confrontation with America than
friendship with Russia. ChinaRussia ties may be closer than they
have been since the days of Mao and Stalin, when the Soviet Union
was China’s “Big Brother”, an overbearing but indispensable pa
tron. That does not make them uniquely important.
China was a study in caution after Russia invaded Ukraine in2014. In keeping with its obsession with its own territorial integri
ty, China abstained when the unSecurity Council considered the
Ukraine crisis in 2014. Chinese officials blamed tensions on plots
and meddling by hostile Western forces, rather than Russia. But
China has never recognised Russia’s annexation of the Crimean
peninsula, and has since worked to build trade with Ukraine. Chi
na criticised American and European sanctions imposed on Rus
sian officials, banks and companies after 2014. But by and large
Chinese banks and companies did not try to bust them, putting ac
cess to Western markets and financial systems first. China has
helped Russia reduce its vulnerabilities to sanctions, making it
easier to use Chinese yuan for some payments rather than dollars.
Such initiatives have always been limited by Chinese capital con
trols, though. In 2014 Russian elites had “very naive expectations”
of the help that China would offer, says Alexander Gabuev, a China
expert at the Carnegie Moscow Centre, a thinktank. Now the two
countries are more realistic about each other, he says, and rela
tions are the stronger for it.
China and Russia: aligned, but not alike
In China some nationalist professors with large socialmedia fol
lowings proclaim that Chinese firms would surely defy American
sanctions imposed over a fresh Ukraine conflict. They predict that
if America takes the dramatic step of cutting Russian banks’ access
to swift, an international payments system, China might build an
alternative payments network with Russia, to challenge the dol
lar’s hegemony. Other, more sober scholars are sceptical. Feng Yu
jun, director of the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies at
Fudan University in Shanghai, suggests that as a commodities ex
porter, Russia can survive economic isolation, whereas “China’s
development hinges on being tightly connected to the world’s in
dustrial, value and supply chains.” Mr Feng disagrees that China
would profit from a Russia that isolates itself further from the
West. Russia already seeks China’s money, technology, markets
and political support. How would China gain from a still more de
pendent Russia, he asks?
Yang Cheng, an expert on Russia at Shanghai International
Studies University, suggests that a major conflict in Ukraine
would bring few benefits to Mr Putin. But he also argues that
America has few good options. For one thing, sanctions that hit
Russian energy exports risk fuelling inflation that hurts America,
he says. As for Russia’s demands for sweeping security guarantees
as a price for peace, Mr Biden can either accept them and duly con
firm America’s reduced clout, or reject them and risk turmoil in
Ukraine. Still, Mr Yang sees no specific benefit to China in such a
clash, for he is sure that America’s foreign priority will remain
“the grand strategy of containing China”. Heisnot alone in his
analysis. Seen from China, a skirmish in Ukraineis a risky side
show, not a window on any future world order.nChaguan
Shared hostility to America makes China close to Russia, but wary