Will China agree to provide military assistance to President Putin? Or will the country use its influence with Russia to try to make peace?
These are the questions the world desperately needs answered as we seem to be heading towards disaster – just yesterday former RAF commander Air Marshal Edward Stringer warned that we were only a few steps away from nuclear war.
Shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine, Putin met with President Xi Jinping at the Beijing Winter Olympics to announce a “limitless” partnership. A partnership based on a deep hostility to America’s global power.
Whether Russian President Xi spoke about his plans to attack Ukraine during this visit remains an open question.
But there is no doubt that Xi was surprised and dismayed that the Russian invasion went awry and so dramatically revived and strengthened the Western alliance that it not only increased defense spending, but also led to arguably the toughest sanctions regime yet. has ever been used against any country.
With the West sending massive amounts of military supplies to Ukraine and sanctions ravaging Russia, Putin needs China more than ever.
Moscow wants to boost its combat capability by importing Chinese-armed drones that have proven their worth on the unnoticed battlefields of Yemen and North Africa — the drones could help Russia gain the air superiority it lacked in its campaign.
Putin needs Chinese banks and companies to help him circumvent Western financial and economic sanctions.
MARK ALMOND: With the West sending massive amounts of military supplies to Ukraine and sanctions ravaging Russia, Putin needs China more than ever. (Pictured: Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) and Russian President Vladimir Putin talk to each other during a meeting in Beijing, Feb. 4, 2022)
And so far, mood music from Beijing favors the Russian dictator.
Yesterday, China’s state newspaper People’s Daily was sharply critical of Western sanctions.
It reported that China’s permanent representative to the UN, Zhang Jun, said that “unreasonable application of sanctions” would not solve the conflict, but only create new problems.
China abstained from the UN vote on the invasion and refused to condemn it.
Over the weekend, Beijing’s official rhetoric about the conflict seemed to back Russia’s absurd claims that the US was using Ukraine to research pathogens and bioweapons, saying Moscow’s concerns were almost certainly a pretext for the potential use of its own chemical weapons. or biological weapons should not be discounted.
Now, on top of that, US intelligence officials have reportedly said that Beijing is open to the idea of supplying weapons to Moscow, and the US has issued a stern warning to China not to interfere.
The terrible thing is that we seem to be witnessing a proxy war between China and the West. The West stands behind Ukraine, but now a gigantic shadow of a dragon stands across the conflict from East Asia.
And the fact is that China may well take advantage of the bloody shortsightedness of the Kremlin.
Looking at a map, one can see that Russia is a vast, resource-rich home front for China, which needs to import energy and metals to fuel its economy.
MARK ALMOND: Moscow wants to boost its combat capability by importing Chinese-armed drones that have proven their worth on the unseen battlefields of Yemen and North Africa — drones could help Russia gain the air superiority it lacked in its campaign. (Pictured: Chinese paramilitary police officers march past the Forbidden City on Friday, March 4, 2022)
The detailed map shows the last battlefields of the war in Ukraine.
With Russia lagging behind, Beijing will bargain hard for any support.
For example, Moscow is already offering oil to India at a discount; Beijing will demand oil, gas, metals and food at reduced prices, and Putin will have to sell.
But just because the Chinese regime is well aware of the main chance and how to capitalize on Putin’s slip does not mean that Beijing will necessarily offer its help.
While Xi may surprise us all by openly siding with Russia and putting up arms, astute Chinese analysts think this is unlikely.
They note that, having seen the determination of the West regarding sanctions against Russia, China will be wary of applying a similar punishment.
It is true that trying to isolate China economically will be much more difficult than trying to isolate Russia, not least because much of what is produced in China is essential to Western business.
But the condemnation of Western sanctions on the Russian war machine as “illegal” may reflect Beijing’s concern that they could be a test of how an isolated, albeit powerful, China could be suppressed by the West in the future.
Thus, China’s most likely course of action would be to walk the fine line of covert Chinese support for Russia while trying to appear as an honest middleman.
After all, China supported North Korea in its war with the US in the 1950s, and then Vietnam as an intermediary against the Americans in the 1960s, without actually declaring war.
While Beijing would like a clean and effective war in which Putin won a quick military victory in Ukraine, China’s goal now is to bog down a weakened Putin in his invasion for a while.
Until three weeks ago, Washington strategists were obsessed with China’s growing challenge to the Western world. Even as Vladimir Putin cemented a so-called partnership with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Western leaders continued to strengthen our naval presence in the Far East.
It would be foolish to think that China’s expansion into the Pacific will be the most likely foothold of a potential conflict.
But Putin’s invasion has turned the tide dramatically in China’s favor as the West shifted its gaze.
MARC ALMOND: The Beijing leaders see the conflict in the far west as very beneficial to them. (Pictured: shelled building in Kyiv, shelling March 15, 2022)
Whatever concessions it wrests from the Kremlin in this crisis, Beijing does not want Putin to be defeated.
A defeated Russia can become revolutionary, as happened in 1917. And any successful uprising will almost certainly bring a pro-Western government to power in Moscow.
This would be bad news for China. President Xi is the heir to the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown and himself silenced dissent in Hong Kong.
The Russian dictatorship is a cozy little bear on its northern border, but Russian democracy would set a bad example for Xi’s subjects.
What China might well try to do in quiet support of Putin is act as a peacemaker between Moscow and Kiev, allowing Putin to retreat wounded but with more or less intact dignity.
By playing on its old political ties, as well as its economic ties with both states, Beijing can bring both sides closer.
Because of our open support for Ukraine and our sanctions, the West cannot mediate.
China’s tacit support for Russia gives it a chance to shape the post-war world to its advantage, possibly gaining valuable contracts and influence to help rebuild Ukraine’s infrastructure after it’s been devastated.
Ukraine’s valiant resistance has so far saved us from the risk of a Russian steamroller crashing into its neighbors.
But NATO countries, including Britain, will have to spend more on the defense of the European continent.
No one wants to be the victim of a surprise Russian attack in the future once Putin has licked his wounds.
It suits China very well that America and its allies will focus on Eastern Europe rather than East Asia.
Outcast Russia will have nowhere to turn but to China. Such a vast vassal state would provide China with vast, resource-rich, safe hinterlands away from US naval power, which could lead to any future sanctions on Chinese maritime trade.
Beijing leaders see the conflict in the far west as very beneficial to them.
Does the prophecy of the founder of communist China, Mao, that “the east wind prevails over the west wind” come true?
Let’s hope not, but the West will have to fight hard and intelligently against China’s headwinds to win.
Marc Almond is director of the Institute for Crisis Studies at Oxford.