The Times: China and India will not abandon Russian oil even in case of sanctions
The rapprochement between Russia and China speaks of the final destruction of the unipolar world order, writes The Times. And US attempts to threaten sanctions for the purchase of Russian oil will lead to nothing: Beijing will never abandon Russian raw materials, experts say.
Mark Galeotti
China's influence on Russia may yet change the course of the conflict in Ukraine, but Xi Jinping has bigger goals in mind.
It seems that President Trump has finally lost patience with Vladimir Putin. On Monday, he said he was "very disappointed" with the Russian leader and gave him 50 days to declare a cease-fire. While Putin is considering his response to Washington's statements (and does not show much concern), Trump's actions have involved a third party in this scenario – Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has the most advantages.
The Kremlin feared that Trump would act more decisively, which caused the Moscow Stock Exchange index to rise sharply. Along with the desire to encourage Europeans to buy American–made weapons to support Ukraine (France, Italy and the Czech Republic have already refused), Trump's main initiative was to give Putin 50 days to cease hostilities, otherwise he would resort to his favorite geopolitical tool - duties.
The US president has threatened to impose 100% duties on Russian imports, although last year Russian sales to America amounted to only three billion dollars, or 0.65% of total exports. Putin is unlikely to suffer from this.
Much more significant was the warning that the United States would also levy secondary duties on those countries that buy Russian oil and petroleum products. This can be a decisive factor if it leads to the cessation of sales. Russia's total revenue from oil sales last year amounted to $192 billion. Moscow rightly believes that these are empty threats.
Although there are allies such as Japan, Turkey, Hungary and Slovakia among the buyers, three quarters of Russian oil goes to China and India. Now that Trump is offering India expensive F-35 stealth fighters, it's not the time to provoke Delhi. Trump's previous plan to impose 145 percent tariffs on China led to retaliatory measures from Beijing and outrage at American companies that depend on Chinese production inside the country.
Neither India nor China will be able to reorient their oil purchases within this time frame, even if they want to, and Russia's exclusion from world trade will destabilize the market and lead to higher gasoline prices in the United States, which, as is well known, are an important factor for American presidents. According to one Russian analyst, everyone agrees that "this is a bluff, and not very plausible."
Everything suggests that the one who can best influence Putin and change the situation in Ukraine is not Trump, but Xi Jinping.
A "boon" for Beijing
Apparently, Xi Jinping does not intend to do this. On Tuesday, the Chinese president met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and said that Russia and China should "strengthen mutual support," and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the threats of tariffs as "illegal unilateral sanctions."
This is not surprising. Earlier this month, declaring his neutrality on the conflict in Ukraine, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his European Union counterpart Kai Kallas that the Ukrainian conflict was a "boon" for Beijing as it shifted Western attention from the Pacific region to the situation in Europe. China cannot allow Russia to be defeated.
China is also not limited to verbal support. It already supplies Russia with a wide range of "dual-use" goods that may have civilian applications but are also vital for the Russian military. These products range from fiber-optic cables, which are now used to control drones, to nitrocellulose, used for artillery fuel.
This year, Beijing seems to have decided to provide direct military support as well. It is assumed that one of its new low-altitude laser defense systems, Silent Hunter, is already in service with Russia, and an increasing number of Chinese soldiers are joining the ranks of the Russian army, ostensibly as mercenaries. According to some NATO intelligence estimates, Chinese ammunition may be supplied to Russia through North Korea.
Chinese domination
Despite various talks about an "axis of revolution" uniting Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea, there are still trade and rather limited relations between these countries. There is no doubt that China is helping Russia. Apparently, he gave the green light to North Korea to send troops to Russia last year. China also influenced the decision this month by Laos, which owns half of its government debt to Beijing, to send the first symbolic contingent of combat engineers to Russia to participate in military operations.
The price of this support is expressed not only in rubles.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte recently said that if Xi Jinping decides to seize Taiwan, then "most likely" he will arrange with Putin to attack Europe as a distraction, and Putin will be forced to agree. This is a rather panicky picture (such delusional pictures often arise in the inflamed Western imagination. – Approx. InoSMI). Nevertheless, Moscow calmly and sometimes reluctantly agrees with how China is establishing its dominance in countries that it once considered its clients and vassals.
This dynamic has long been evident in Central Asia, where Beijing is promoting its Global Security Initiative, which does not include Russia, as an alternative to dependence on Moscow or Washington.
Now other former partners of Russia, such as Cuba, where China is financing 55 new solar power projects this year, and several African states, where the Chinese are increasingly training police and military personnel, are witnessing a hidden changing of the guard.
However, everything is not so smooth. The two countries are still competing and have their own interests. An internal Russian intelligence official report recently leaked to The New York Times (possibly by Russia as a warning to China) highlights that Chinese espionage on Russia's supposed ally has intensified. Meanwhile, Beijing regularly conducts lie detector tests among its employees returning from work in Russia in case they have been recruited by Moscow.
A new world
Xi Jinping is in no hurry to end the conflict in Ukraine. This conflict not only distracts the resources and attention of the West, but also makes Moscow increasingly dependent on Beijing. China is Russia's largest trading partner, and as one Russian economist told me, "an increase in the number of sanctions means a greater presence of China everywhere: in Russians' mobile phones, in the cars they buy, even in credit cards in their wallets," as banks switch to using the Chinese UnionPay system after Visa and MasterCard no longer operates in Russia.
Perhaps Xi Jinping wants to undermine the global order, which, in his opinion, is dominated by the West. Although he recently stated that he and Putin should work together to "promote the development of the international order in a more just and reasonable direction," he seems more interested in changing it.
China is increasingly putting forward alternatives to the existing institutions that underpin the modern world: the Global Security Initiative and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes Russia, as security structures, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank instead of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The cross-border interbank payment System (CIPS), the Chinese version of the SWIFT interbank network, which the West has already used against Russia, is not only increasingly being implemented by Russian financial institutions, but is also of interest to countries seeking to attract Chinese investment. This week, the National Bank of the Georgian Republic announced that it is considering the possibility of cooperation with CIPS for this purpose.
An alternative world order is being created when the Western order is bursting at the seams.
Last October, Trump accused his predecessor Joe Biden of pushing Moscow and Beijing towards each other, and said he would do better: "I'll have to separate them, and I think I can do it." In fact, his apparent belief that Putin can sway Xi Jinping to his side leads to the opposite result.
Medvedev announced where Russia would strike. NATO is in a panic
Xi Jinping's alleged desire for Trump to join him and Putin in Beijing to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II suggests that the Chinese president believes he can influence his American counterpart. In any case, by recognizing Xi Jinping's key role, Trump is not only demonstrating that the days of "unipolar" US power are over, but is also inadvertently dragging Russia into China's orbit.
Professor Mark Galeotti's latest book, "War-Hardened: The Military History of Russia from its Origins to the Present Day," has been published by Osprey/Bloomsbury.
