For most Western media consumers, the script for a confrontation on Ukrainian territory was firmly in their heads long before the current war: A massive cyber attack cripples Ukrainian infrastructure, and the next morning, the Russian flag flies over the Palace. Mariyinsky in Kiev. The larger-than-life strategist Vladimir Putin would then simply blame a few Nazis with clever methods of information warfare. The West would then be morally outraged, but ultimately just impose toothless sanctions. End.
This is exactly how it was imagined at Zhongnanhai, in the government palace in Beijing. Whether this assumption was induced by intelligence errors or whether Chinese leadership circles – following their own strategic military principles – simply found it impossible that the Russian army leadership could seriously consider attacking Ukraine on a broad front with nearly 200,000 men is not clear. As Western partisanship with possible consequences for the People’s Republic was never considered, Beijing initially had no problem closing ranks with Russia. Even the official Russian phrase for the invasion of Ukraine as “military special operations” (tebie zhanshi xingdong) was adopted. And books about Putin, dubbed “The Great Conqueror” in Chinese popular culture, were even the most searched items on e-commerce platform Dangdang for a short time.
Ukraine as Xi’s problem
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly two weeks after President Xi Jinping solemnly declared Russia a “borderless partner” is more than a diplomatic and communicative failure for the leadership in Beijing. Currently, Xi’s only option is to be seen as naive or admit that he misjudged the situation so badly that he gave Putin the green light. Neither is conducive to his plans to stay in office for at least another period after the 20th party congress in the fall of this year. Even his departure from Deng Xiaoping’s “diplomatic restraint” command and the reorganization of foreign policy decision-making according to a strictly hierarchical top-down principle (dingcen sheji) in the fall of 2013 was anything but uncontroversial in several think tanks. Chinese security policy. If the People’s Republic falls into diplomatic isolation under his leadership, the nimbus of the great leader above things, which Xi has been trying to maintain for years, would likely not be much left at the next party congress.
A plan for Taiwan?
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is being closely watched in Chinese leadership circles not just because of the impending diplomatic unrest. The fact that a well-armed and numerically vastly superior army is far from achieving its war objectives after a month of campaigning accompanied by errors in judgment and many serious problems will also inevitably influence the simulation games for the invasion of Taiwan proposed by China.
© M. Hirsch
Speculation about the timing of an invasion has intensified much more since Xi directly linked this project to “national resurrection” and the realization of the “Chinese Dream” by 2049. However, there are still different timelines: for some analysts, the invasion will be completed by 2035, for this year Xi also included an intermediate step in the march to 2049 at the 19th party congress in 2017. Others follow the view of Admiral Philip Davidson, commander of the US Navy in the Indo-Pacific to 2021, who believes that 2027 is the most likely date for the centenary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army. Taiwan Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng believes China could do so militarily by 2025. The timelines discussed seem secondary to the question of how the incursion into Ukraine can serve as a model for China’s ambitions in the Taiwan Strait, but secondary anyway. Because a military invasion of Taiwan would only come at a much higher price. Although China has greatly expanded its military capabilities since 2017, there is a lack of combat-experienced pilots, the Navy has only recently become operational in operational conditions, and according to the US Naval War College, there are not even joint maneuvers between the different branches. of the ongoing armed forces, which are needed for a serious invasion. There would also be much more at stake for China than for Russia these days: the likelihood of a failed invasion leading to the end of the CP regime is high.
a matter of cost
At Zhongnanhai, the discrepancy between Russia’s great-power ambitions and actual capabilities has also been known for many years. Despite this, the country has been considered an important partner in the dispute for global influence since the mid-1990s. There is no strong and, above all, sustainable Russia-China axis that some analysts, including Austrians, have outlined in relation to Ukraine. From Beijing’s point of view, Russia is a major energy supplier, but at the same time a country with an unsustainable economy that sells sophisticated weapons systems to its Asian arch-rivals India and Vietnam and rejects Xi’s new model of world order. of the “community of destiny”. Clear solidarity with Moscow – beyond the media – is therefore out of the question.
The China-dominated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has suspended lending as a result of Western sanctions, and China has so far refused to provide replacement parts for civil aircraft.
Leading Russian experts such as Feng Yujung and Ji Zhiye, both from the most influential foreign policy think tank, the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), see Russia as a destructive power. In other words, foreign policy planning in Beijing is not about a “new axis” but about whether the possible benefits of “anti-Western solidarity” outweigh the risks and costs that arise from it. In the event that Putin fails in Ukraine, former editor of the PC newspaper “Global Times”, Hu Xijin, even believes that a “color revolution” in Russia is possible.
Disappointing military technology
The only area in which Russia has been admired by China so far is its alleged hybrid warfare capability. While the People’s Republic lags far behind here, Russia has historically been seen as a model: from implementing a National Strategy – the “Gerasimov Doctrine” – to being able to use a combination of diplomatic subterfuge, disinformation and military force to achieve geopolitical goals.
There has been disillusionment in China as a result of the war in Ukraine, not only with regard to Russian strategy, but also with regard to Russian war technology, which is also found in most Chinese weapons systems – from air defense to navy – and it has been the changes in recent weeks that have proven to be clearly inferior to Western systems. The combat helicopter “Kamov”, of which China has 36 units on its order list, has so far not only suffered heavy losses in Ukraine. As with some types of radar-guided aircraft and anti-aircraft systems, its technology has now become accessible to Western military experts as a result of deployment in Ukraine. Further emancipation of Russian military technology is likely to be on China’s agenda sooner or later.