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Chinese President Xi Jinping attends a joint statement with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
China’s delicate dance on Ukraine
Over 18 months of war, President Xi Jinping’s pledge of “friendship without limits” with Russia has repeatedly been tested. China blames the West for Russia’s invasion and continues to buy Russia’s oil at discount prices, but it has also refused to endorse Russian claims on Ukrainian land and offers itself as a neutral player that wants peace.
Last weekend, Saudi Arabia hosted more than 40 countries for talks on how to end the war. Russia, which was not invited, dismissed the gathering as pointless. But Chinese officials, who did attend, said those present helped to “consolidate international consensus” on peace and signaled a willingness to participate in more such meetings. Ukrainian officials hailed China’s words, the US welcomed its participation, and EU diplomats said China’s presence had underscored Russia’s deepening isolation.
On Monday, China and Russia each announced a phone call between Wang Yi and Sergey Lavrov, their respective foreign ministers. Each side reported that the two men spoke about the war and their common interests. Neither side mentioned the weekend’s talks. China says Wang reiterated China’s intention to “uphold an independent and impartial stance” on the war. Russia says the call “once again confirmed the unity” of Russia and China.
China could lead a credible effort to end the war, but it would have to use its economic and political leverage to persuade both the Russian and Ukrainian governments to make concessions they’re still dead-set against making. It matters that China would show up for talks that its Russian friends weren’t invited to, but Ukraine remains a long way from sustainable peace.
China's Ukraine gambit
Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine almost a year ago, China has strived to keep a low profile in the war by remaining officially neutral yet refusing to condemn Russian aggression. But over the past few days, top US and European officials say they see signs that China plans to intervene by supplying lethal aid — weapons and ammo — directly to the Kremlin.
The Chinese deny this, publicly at least, and accuse the US of meddling in the “no-limits” partnership between Beijing and Moscow. The relationship remains "rock solid," top diplomat Wang Yi told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday before meeting Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
To be clear, so far the accusation comes only from Western governments. But the fact that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, British PM Rishi Sunak, and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg have all blown the whistle suggests that something is in the works.
If true, sending arms to Russia would come at a potentially big cost to China. At a minimum, it would put Beijing — and the Chinese economy, the world’s second-largest — at risk of tougher and more expansive Western sanctions.
It certainly would not endear China to the European partners it has been working so hard to woo as Beijing recovers from the economic wreckage of zero-COVID. Finally, it would also throw a wrench into the already fraught US-China relationship just as both sides are working to deflate balloon-gate.
Yet driving a wedge between Ukraine’s allies might be part of the point. If some European members of NATO start to believe that China could get involved directly in a way that significantly bolsters Russian capabilities, they might think twice about giving Ukraine open-ended military support. The alliance also faces a split if some Europeans fear that upcoming US secondary sanctions against China will hurt them too.
Meanwhile, China says it will soon present its own proposal to end the conflict. Watch out for a few tidbits in Xi Jinping’s planned speech to mark the one-year anniversary of the war on Friday. So far we only know that Xi’s plan might call for an end to military assistance for either side.
"If that’s delivered as an ultimatum — China will help Russia unless the US and its allies stop aiding Ukraine — then we will be forced to conclude that the Chinese have decided to play chicken with NATO,” says Anna Ashton, Eurasia Group's top China analyst.
Why is China doing this? For Ashton, China is seeking to draw a contrast between its motives and those of the US by presenting itself as the only major power offering an off-ramp that might not be palatable to Ukraine or its Western friends "but that the developing world would like to see.”
China’s peace narrative, she explains, resonates in Global South countries that have not taken sides in the conflict yet continue to pay the price for it in high energy and food costs.
What's more, this is perhaps the opportunity China’s strongman leader was waiting for to boost his country's diplomacy game. After all, at last year's 20th Communist Party Congress, Xi already flagged that he wants China — which last entered a major conflict outside its borders in the Korean War — to play a more active role in global security. (On Tuesday, Beijing followed up by publishing the first concept paper for Xi’s much-touted Global Security Initiative.)
Just a decade ago, the idea of China suddenly reversing a longstanding foreign policy of neutrality in foreign conflicts would have been almost impossible. But that was before Xi became the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong.
Indeed, intervening to help Russia in Ukraine would be the most striking example to date of “Maximum Xi,” Eurasia Group’s No. 2 top geopolitical risk for 2023. The notion basically means that China’s leader has unfettered power to pursue whatever policies he wants with almost zero constraints and challenging views.
But with more power come "more surprising decisions, more impunity, more opportunity to make mistakes, which is likely a factor here," Ashton says.
Thought bubble: What if the mere threat of arming Russia puts China in a position to actually affect the outcome of the war? Imagine a Russian military suddenly recharged by vast amounts of Chinese-made weapons. That might scare some governments into settling for peace before things get very ugly for Ukraine.
And China has a plan for that.
Russian President Vladimir Putin walks to deliver his annual address to the Federal Assembly in Moscow.
What We’re Watching: Putin blames the West, China in Ukraine war, Sunak close to Northern Ireland deal
Putin blames the West … for everything
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin played all the greatest hits Tuesday when he took to the podium for a State of the Union address to Russian legislators and the military just days out from the one-year anniversary of the Ukraine war. In his typically defiant fashion, Putin said that the West “started the war” and warned that Moscow would not back down from its objectives in Ukraine, emphasizing Russian unity on the issue. He also revived the (debunked) justification that the war was crucial to “protect Russia and liquidate the neo-Nazi threat” from Kyiv. Crucially, Putin implied that Russia would break with the New START treaty, which limits Moscow and Washington to deploying 1,550 nuclear weapons a piece, though Russia has reportedly already exceeded that number. Suspending the treaty would also block the US from monitoring compliance. This comes just hours before US President Joe Biden will deliver a speech in Warsaw, where he is expected to again frame the war in Ukraine as a fight for democracy itself.
US-China exchange barbs over Ukraine
China on Monday denied US accusations that it might provide Russia with lethal aid — weapons — to attack Ukraine, telling Washington to stay out of its (albeit complicated) relationship with Moscow. After meeting Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat, over the weekend at the Munich Security Conference, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that giving the Russians lethal aid would be a "serious problem" for Beijing, though he didn’t give further details. In the early stages of the war, the US sounded the alarm about Russia asking Beijing for help and China possibly looking to supply Russia with arms, despite the fact that Beijing actually buys weaponsfrom Moscow and doesn't sell any to the Russians. Ultimately, China didn't answer Russia’s plea for arms — likely to avoid Western sanctions. Now, however, Blinken says that Xi Jinping wants to have his cake and eat it too by calling in public for a negotiated peace in Ukraine while privately supplying Russia with all sorts of non-lethal stuff, such as spare parts for Su-35 fighter jets, to help Vladimir Putin defeat Ukraine. This week, we'll be keeping an eye on Wang as he travels to Moscow and perhaps meets with Putin ahead of a big Xi “peace” speech reportedly planned for Friday.
Brexit never (really) ends
As soon as Tuesday, British PM Rishi Sunak aims to finally confirm a deal with the EU on post-Brexit Northern Ireland trade rules. (Once again, this is the arrangement that his predecessor, Boris Johnson, reached with Brussels to avoid a hard border between the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state, and Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK.) Sunak hopes that the agreement will both restart Northern Ireland's power-sharing government, currently boycotted by DUP unionists who want to keep the EU at arm's length, and steal the thunder from hardcore Brexiteers within the Conservative Party led by Johnson who back a bill allowing British ministers to override provisions in the 2020 Brexit agreement. Still, it won’t be easy for Sunak to sell the deal to the DUP, which fears being perceived as selling out to Brussels, and to the Tory Euroskeptics, who want to have a say even if the agreement is not put to a vote in parliament. And all this, mind you, is just one of Sunak's myriad ongoing headaches … with Johnson looking over his shoulder.
The Graphic Truth: China-Russia trade ties
Relations between Russia and China are complicated. While Beijing and Moscow have become chummy in recent decades, the relationship reached a low point during the Cold War after Mao Zedong severed ties with the Soviet Union. The intervening years have seen increased interaction between the two economies. Trade turnover reached a record $147 billion in 2021. Still, Russia is far more reliant on revenue from exports to China, the world’s second-largest economy, than Beijing is on Moscow. We look at China-Russia trade relations since 2000.