Ukraine: peace, escalation or stalemate? The answer lies with China
Chris Johns
What happens next? There is endless speculation about Russia’s military blunders, the capacity of Ukraine to resist, what Putin is capable of - indeed, what might or might not be in his head. The smart money is betting that China has the power to determine most of the answers to these questions. Xi Jingpin is now faced with probably the biggest decision of his life.
Russia has asked China for military assistance and economic aid to offset Western sanctions. What will be Xi’s answer? Whatever it is, it be consequential for all of us, not just Russia or Ukraine. Massively consequential.
The first thing that strikes me about the Russian request for arms and munitions is that it looks very odd. Russia is a global power that has run out of bullets after 2 1/2 weeks of ops? Perhaps it really is down to its last few tanks and PGMs - which says a lot about the state of its military. Or maybe Putin just wants to force Xi to become a participant. Perhaps a bit of both. Either way, Xi Jingpin must respond to Putin’s request.
Mere silence would be deafening. That must be the most likely way Xi will say no. It will take time for this to become apparent. If and when Putin realises he is on his own he will, in turn be faced with big decisions. Which will be at least in part determined by the state of the war: does he persist with occupation, negotiation, withdrawal or escalate?
What will determine China’s decision? In an insightful column Adrian Wooldridge spells out the mistakes made by the West in its dealings with Russia and China. First, the mistakes with regard to Putin:
The U.S. and its allies … policy rested on three naive assumptions: that integration into the global economy would eventually lead to westernization; that the Putin regime is a mere deviation on the road to liberal democracy, Russia’s long tradition of autocracy be damned; and that cultural nationalism counts for little against the charms of western cosmopolitanism.
For Russia so it went with China. The West’s three key errors also applied to dealings with China. The Chinese are, arguably, just as revanchist as Putin, just as incandescently angry about historic grievances flowing from centuries of past Western imperialism.
A key part of Wooldridge’s thesis, drawn partly from the work of Sino scholars, is that the West was right to think that China would abandon Marxist-Leninism. But only half right. Marx was jettisoned in favour of capitalism but with a Leninist twist: the State - in the form of the Chinese communist party - takes primacy over everything, including everything economic.
Perhaps China will split the difference, as with Marx and Lenin: supply economic aid but draw the line at missiles. Russia is reported to be asking for food supplies for its army, as well as arms. Another curious request from a military superpower.
Wooldridge lists the ways in which we have have got China wrong. To my personal astonishment I find myself saying: if he is right, so was Trump.
Chain’s calculation will presumably include the economic costs of backing Putin. If that’s the way it goes then the globalisation of the last 30 years will be as over as it was in 1914. Chinese stocks and bonds are clearly worried that this will be the outcome.
China’s economic progress since 1978 has been driven by its adoption of state capitalism and its subsequent entry into the WTO global trading system. Depending on whose statistics we look at, upwards of 700m Chinese have been lifted out of poverty by the abandonment of Marxism.
Allying itself with Russia will put much of this progress into reverse. Is this a price Xi is willing to pay? Just as we need to know the mind of Putin when thinking about all of our futures, we must watch the Chinese leader.
Gideon Rachman puts it very well in this FT column. His conclusion:
It is often assumed that China will be the senior partner in the “no limits” partnership with Russia but Xi’s decision to embrace Putin now looks likes a miscalculation. It is hard to play the long game if you tie yourself to a reckless gambler.
Here’s hoping that Xi reaches similar conclusions.
My former colleague Gary McCarthy focuses on the financial and economic consequences of Xi tying himself to Putin. He elaborates on what we are already seeing in Chinese financial markets, described above. If it is a monetary calculus, it looks like a done deal. But if China wants finally to take revenge for the Opium Wars, this will all get a lot, lot, worse.
The Chinese are very canny, I would be surprised if they did help Putin with his war on Ukraine. I don’t see any wins in it for them and they risk too much economically. The West has stood together quite unexpectedly, China won’t want to face a United effort where sanctions may well apply to them too. Like I said no wins, they already did a great deal on Russian resources so Russia has little more to offer. Putin’s bear isn’t as big as feared, we all have to live here and need to find a way to get along.
I’m afraid your musings are rather terrifying 😢 Let’s hope the Chinese decide that they should hurt Russia when they’re in trouble!🤣