In an act of brotherhood to Putin, Xi reveals fear of Chinese containment

The President of China, Xi Jinping, flew to Moscow this week cast by Beijing as its messenger for peace in Ukraine. However, his summit with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin demonstrated that his priority remains to fortify ties with Moscow to counter what he sees as a longstanding US campaign to impede China’s rise.

The Ukraine discussion has been overshadowed by Xi’s oath of iron solidarity with Russia as a political, diplomatic, economic and military partner: two superpowers united against domination of the United States and the Western-led world order. The summit shows Mr. Xi’s intention to reinforce Beijing’s tilt towards Moscow against what he called a recent US effort to “contain” China in its entirety.

Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin use the pomp of a three-day state visit That ended on Wednesday to signal to their publics and Western capitals that ties between the two countries remained strong and, in their eyes, indispensable, 13 months after Mr. invasion of Ukraine. They set out their vision for the world in one nine-point joint statement covers everything from Taiwan to climate change and relations with Mongolia, often depicting the United States as an obstacle to a better, more just world.

“It looks like a strategic plan for a decade or more. “It was not an immediate response to the war in Ukraine,” said Alexander Korolev, a senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales in Australia who studies China-Russia relations. Noting the statement’s repeated criticisms of the United States, he said: “The threat is no longer latent and hypothetical; It’s very clear.”

Discussion of China’s shady proposal to end the war in Ukraine appears only in the last part of their joint statement, does not provide specifics on a path forward. In a warning to Western pro-Ukrainian countries, they said any solution to the crisis must “prevent the formation of confrontational blocs that add fuel to the fire”.

Instead, the leaders discussed plans to strengthen economic cooperation and attract more Chinese investors to Russia. They profess to admire each other’s dictatorships, with Mr. Xi even backing Mr. Putin to stay in power for another term, showing the Russians that he is sure they should support Mr. Putin in the election. election next year.

“Xi Jinping has practically launched a re-election campaign for Putin,” said Maria Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University who studies political communication in China and Russia. “It seems to be an important signal that highlights the extent of their friendship and that he really supports Putin.”

But while Mr. Xi sought to demonstrate China’s commitment to Russia, he did not write Mr. Putin a check in favor of white. Although Putin announced that a new pipeline supplying natural gas to China would be completed by 2030, Xi did not confirm the deal.

China also adjusted the language used to describe its relationship with Russia. When Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin issued a joint statement last year, three weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, they said that Beijing and Moscow have an “infinite friendship”. This time, they sought to draw clearer lines, declaring that they were not part of a traditional political and military alliance. Xi and other Chinese officials generally avoid repeating the “infinite friendship” rhetoric, though Putin still uses it.

Still, the symbolic support Xi and Putin have for each other will be unique to each leader, said Repnikova, a scholar at Georgia State University. She noted that the two countries’ main state-run broadcasters also signed a historic content-sharing agreement, highlighting their shared interest in vaccinating their people against major influences. rule of the West.

“It signals that, no matter how limited, this is still a very important partnership – that China is not alone in confronting the West and that Russia is certainly supported by China,” she said. .

Xi and Putin’s media executives have viewed their relationship as brotherly, bolstered by glasses of vodka, birthday cakes and ice cream in more than 40 meetings. But Xi’s calculation for Russia is not based on emotion. It is established in China’s broader strategic calculations that are likely to remain fixed, regardless of the outcome of the upcoming spring battles in Ukraine.

In Xi’s view, recently stated in unusually blunt termsThe United States is engaged in “comprehensive containment, encirclement, and suppression of China” — a campaign of sanctions and diplomatic pressure that he says has brought “unprecedented serious challenges” to the country. This. To counter Western pressure, Xi wants to give Putin economic and political support to secure their partnership, even if China may not want to interfere in Russia’s war in the Middle East. Ukraine.

“Xi is making an important political gesture of support to Putin during this trip, essentially demonstrating that the relationship will be sustainable even under these difficult circumstances and that he is willing to living with the humiliation of the West,” says Andrew Small, author. belong to “Unlimited: The Inside Story of China’s War With the West.”

Beijing has indicated that Mr. Xi will help negotiation promotion between Russia and Ukraine during his visit, after Western powers urged China to use its influence over Russia to prevent war. But in the end, Mr. Small said, “The simulation of a ‘peace mission’ is even less than what the Chinese diplomats announced in advance.”

Visit of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan Kiev this week pro-Ukraine, coinciding with Xi’s talks with Putin, seems to deepen China’s view that the war has coalesced into a global competition that also targets Beijing.

Strong ties with Russia have become more important to China as its relationship with the United States deteriorates. A series of events since last year appear to have reinforced Mr. Xi’s wariness towards Washington, even as he seeks to stabilize relations with President Biden.

Chinese officials have point out US restrictions about China’s access to advanced semiconductors needed in everything from supercomputers to weapons development. Surname also condemned the move of the United States and Britain to help Australia build nuclear-powered submarines, to counter China’s military growth.

After Mr. Xi’s state visit ended, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang issued a statement on the significance of the visit, saying: “The main contradiction in the world today is not the so-called the ‘confrontation between democracy and authoritarianism’ that some countries have brought into play, but rather the struggle between development and the retardation of development”.

“Beijing is trying to emphasize to a mostly domestic audience that the United States is engaged in a multi-sector, multi-pronged, and multi-agent effort to actively prevent China’s continued rise, ” said Jude Blanchette, who holds the position of Freeman Chair of China Studies at the Institute of China Studies. Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Blanchette said Xi’s term “comprehensive containment” was meant to summarize “China’s attempt to slow growth, block China’s access to advanced technologies and erode relations China’s relations with neighboring countries.

According to this worldview, Ukraine, instead of falling victim to a gratuitous war wrought by Russia, is caught up in a proxy war by the United States and its allies against Moscow – and by extension. Beijing – to reassert US global dominance. That theme is echoed in many recent reviews of the conflict of State Institute of China And Analysts of the People’s Liberation Army.

Yang Guanghai, a professor at China National University of Defense Technology, wrote in an article: recent research on war. “The US position on exploiting Ukraine as a proxy force will not change. Like Russia, China is also a key target in the US strategy of ‘great power competition’.

Any goodwill by Mr. Xi in trying to mediate between Kyiv and Moscow, then, is likely to remain tightly constrained by his broader commitment to sticking closely with Russia. and Mr. Putin.

After the meeting with Putin, Mr. Xi may contact Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It would be Mr. Xi’s first call with the leader since the invasion began. Even if he did, the peace proposal outlined by China is unlikely to win support in Kiev because it implicitly reflects Russia’s official grievances with NATO that could constrain Ukraine’s claims. .

In a joint statement, Xi and Putin criticized NATO’s efforts to pay more attention to Asia. The leaders have asserted that China’s relationship with Russia is superior to that of traditional Western military blocs because it is “mature, stable, independent and resilient”. China’s official news agency, Xinhua News Agency, gave an explanatory article why the two countries do not want to form a formal alliance forcing them to support each other in war.

Some readers were not convinced. “Only in name are we not allies,” commented one reader.

Olivia Wang contribution report.