Is China Putin’s Saving Grace

          Hateful Russian Invasion Symbol

“We are watching closely to see the extent to which China actually does provide any form of support, material support or economic support, to Russia. It is a concern of ours. And we have communicated to Beijing that we will not stand by and allow any country to compensate Russia for its losses from the economic sanctions… communicating directly, privately to Beijing that there will absolutely be consequences for large-scale sanctions evasion efforts or support to Russia to backfill them.” 

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan's Interview On CNN's State Of The Union, March 13th.

With Swiss and Western banks freezing all Russian deposits, Vladimir Putin’s careful stockpiling a vast reserve of international currencies in anticipation of expect sanctions when he invaded Ukraine crashed and burned. All that currency is no longer available to him. Putin’s only ally, reinforced by a new (February) mutual cooperation agreement, is China. At first, PRC President Xi Jinping, watched with glee as a fellow autocrat was on the verge of toppling a nascent bordering democracy, leaning heavily towards the West. It was a test case for the “someday” PRC invasion of Taiwan, their claimed “breakaway province.” As Putin’s “the West is weak, and disorganized” perception evaporated in NATO unity, with overwhelming global antipathy at Putin and his lawless attack against Ukraine and Russia’s vast military slowed, Xi was equally stunned.

As further evidence of the success of Western sanction hitting individual Russians, tens of thousands of Russians traveling all over the world were stranded without reasonable available access to return flights. There credit cards were inoperable as well. For example, in Thailand, “Siwaporn Boonruang, a volunteer interpreter for Russians stranded in Krabi, said some cannot pay their bills because they can no longer use Visa or Mastercard credit cards… Many have cash and those with UnionPay credit cards, which are issued by a Chinese financial services company, can still use them, but payment by cryptocurrency is not allowed, she said… Many hotels have helped by offering discounted rates, she added.” Associated Press, March 13th. China is and was a financial solution that could mitigate Russia’s pain.

But was China pulling away from Russia, or were they just playing a game for good international optics? Without harsh words against Russia, Xi ordered his United Nations representative within the Security Council not to join a Russia’s veto of a motion to condemn Putin’s invasion. China was one of the 35 nations that abstained in the UN’s 141 out of 193 nation General Assembly vote to condemn the invasion. Only Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria voted with Russia against the resolution. Engaged in courting global trade through its Belt and Road initiative and building strong political ties overseas – see my recent As America Strengthens in Eastern Europe, China Moves on Latin America blog – China’s appearing to sanction Russia’s attack was clearly no longer in the cards for President Xi. 

Simply, China wanted to appear neutral as it considered its options. Doyle McManus, writing an OpEd for the March 13th Los Angeles Times, called China out on its game playing: “When Russia invaded Ukraine last month, a spate of wishful thinking ran through the West that China, a great power with friends on both sides, might step in to mediate a cease-fire…China’s government struck a pose of neutrality, called for a peaceful resolution and said it supported the principle of ‘territorial integrity.’.. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a public plea to China’s Xi Jinping to intervene… But Xi has been missing in action — and in practice, his policies have been far less neutral than advertised… China hasn’t condemned the invasion and initially didn’t even call it a war. It still hasn’t acknowledged which country’s tanks crossed the other’s borders.”

Still, Putin was smelling a growing distance from Xi, and China was caught in the middle. Make no mistake, Xi’s heart and mind were clearly anything but neutral; he and Putin are cut from the same autocratic cloth, each believing that the West was weakening, particularly the heavily polarized United States, and that their time to act was upon them. Putin simply has to figure out how to bring China back into the Russian fold, to test Xi’s bona fides as a fellow autocrat. Putin laid it on the table by asking China to live up to their mutual cooperation agreement. 

“Russia has turned to China for military equipment [including soldiers?] and aid in the weeks since it began its invasion of Ukraine, U.S. officials familiar with the matter told The Washington Post… The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, did not describe what kind of weaponry had been requested, or whether they know how China responded…

“Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, speaking Sunday [3/13] in a television interview, noted that part of Moscow’s gold and foreign exchange reserves were in Chinese currency, Reuters reported. ‘And we see what pressure is being exerted by Western countries on China in order to limit mutual trade.’

“‘But I think that our partnership with China will still allow us to maintain the cooperation that we have achieved, and not only maintain, but also increase it in an environment where western markets are closing.’” Washington Post, March 13th. China was just keeping its head down by publicly ignoring all the obvious evidence that Putin’s effort showed his own weakness. McManus warned the world that China is in this game… on the wrong side: “China was never neutral to begin with.

“And that reflects what may be the most important fact about the new world disorder that Putin’s invasion has unleashed: [China’s] Xi has made a choice. He believes the coming decades will be dominated by confrontations between the United States and China, with Russia as China’s sole important ally… For anyone pondering the parallels between this new period and the Cold War, there’s an eerie echo of the Sino-Soviet alliance that once sought to dominate Eurasia — only this time, with China as the senior partner.” Has the West’s solidarity made an impression on President Xi? Exactly how far will the United States go if, despite the above warning, China comes to Putin’s aid? And exactly what does “large scale” mean in Mr. Sullivan’s quote above?

Nevertheless, there is indeed a tendency for autocrats, particularly brutal rulers, to join forces in mutual admiration, hoping force prevails over democracy. Will China show its true colors? 

I’m Peter Dekom, and if autocrats fear the counterattack and rejection of those oppressed – dictators’ thinking “there but for the grace of the God of War go I” – perhaps democracy can finally fight back against the 21st century rise of autocracy.