While I agree with Steven Roach’s point in his piece at Project Syndicate—that it will take China’s participation to “stop Russia”—I also think he’s dreaming:
Yet China can’t have it both ways. There is no way it can stay the course, as Li suggests, while adhering to the partnership agreement with Russia announced by Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. Many believed that Russia and China had come together in shaping a grand strategy for a new Cold War. I called it China’s triangulation gambit: joining with Russia to corner the United States, just as the Sino-American rapprochement 50 years ago successfully cornered the former Soviet Union. The US, the architect of that earlier triangulation, was now being triangulated.
Yet in the span of just one month, Putin’s horrific war against Ukraine has turned this concept on its head. If China remains committed to its new partnership with Russia, it faces guilt by association. Just as Russia has been isolated by draconian Western sanctions that could devastate its economy for decades, the same fate awaits China if it deepens its new partnership. This outcome, of course, is completely at odds with China’s development goals just enunciated by Li. But it is a very real risk if China maintains unlimited support for Russia, including tempering the impact of Western sanctions, as a literal reading of the February 4 agreement implies.
or, said another way, I don’t think he sees the likely course of events clearly. I don’t think President Xi can change his course without, er, “losing the mandate of Heaven” so he won’t. I think that the countries including the United States so roundly condemning the Russians will go through enormous contortions to avoid condemning China “by association”. Their positions and livelihoods are on the line which does wonders to focus the mind.
Has anyone tried to think how Xi (and most Chinese policy makers) would perceive the situation. Here’s a hint.
(a) military alliances are a threat to Russia. Being on the receiving end of two (the Quad, AUKUS), the Chinese may sympathize with Russian paranoia.
(b) the use of sanctions and secondary sanctions like the US is organizing against Russia is a threat to China. Wielding unilateral power to seize central bank reserves would concern any country that has $2 trillion dollars in treasuries.
(c) they may not have sympathy for a government that came to power in a “color revolution”. Especially after Hong Kong.
Policy makers could play a game of “guilt by association”, and escalating sanctions. But its a dangerous gambit; we could literally lit the fire of hyperinflation.
The US trade deficit with China is 355 billion dollars a year. Those supply chains which are already strained and damaged could break entirely if this country is not careful.
That’s not to say China is okay with war or annexation. But they may well think Finlandization and recognization of Crimea through negotiations (not through Western coercion) is the preferred course.
China has only two allies, Russia and North Korea. Moreover, it is critically dependent on Russia for all sorts of resources and even for defense. China might not like the invasion of Ukraine (but are you sure?), but they have to at least acquiesce to it, or their own strategic position becomes untenable.
My copy of the WSJ today is filled with articles written by panicked and hysterical commentators and lies, enormous, mind-boggling lies. Russia has won the war, and Zelensky is suing for peace. None of our sanctions will change that fact.
Again, only the EU is supporting the sanctions, and actually not all of them. Hungary will not support them, neither will Turkey nor Mexico, nor India nor China nor Pakistan. In fact, hardly any African, Latin American or Asia country supports them. Only our military allies do.
Commodity prices, which are infinitely more important than financial exchange rates, are exploding. The London Metals Exchange has suspended trading in nickel. The Securities and Exchange Board of India has suspended futures trading in some agricultural products. Hungary has ordered a halt in the export of grains.
Russia’s counter sanctions are yet to come. They are still shipping gas to Europe. But we are now entering a period of open economic warfare that will likely give us another Great Depression, and that will give us WW III.
To ensure accuracy.
China and Russia are not allies as usually understood. They have no treaty bounding either to defend the other through military or diplomatic means. The Chinese/Russian relationship is usually labeled a “strategic partnership” — a relationship where both parties find areas of mutual interest and cooperate in further their mutual shared goals.