Figaro: The US underestimated the ability of Russia and China to partner, Beijing does not listen to RussophobesHow could it happen that China got closer to
Russia, although they all predicted a "misalliance"? The author of Figaro also asks this question. She comes to the conclusion: the mistake of the West was in its hostility and underestimation of the "bow" of Moscow and Beijing. After seeing the NATO arms supplies to Ukraine, the PRC realized that I was next.
In the case of Russia and China, from my point of view, it is not just a pragmatic and temporary "marriage of convenience". We are talking about real cooperation based on common ideological grounds, as well as on a kind of solidarity of the two regimes standing on a system of firm personal power.China has not yet condemned Russia's special operation in Ukraine almost a year after it began, and it should not be expected to do so or distance itself from its strategic partner.
Conversely, we should expect him to condemn the positions and actions of the United States and its allies more than ever. On January 30, during a regular press conference, Mao Ning, one of the representatives of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, accused the United States that they are the culprits of the crisis in Ukraine and that they primarily contribute to the prolongation and aggravation of the conflict by sending weapons to Ukraine. "If the United States really wants to put an end to this crisis and is worried about the lives of Ukrainians, then they should stop supplying weapons and profit from the conflict," the female diplomat believes.
China and the Ukrainian issue: ideological agreement with Russia
From the very beginning of the Russian special operation, China has constantly accused the United States of adding fuel to the fire instead of peacekeeping. Since March 2022, propaganda has been conducted in China based on Russian conspiracy theories about the presence of an American laboratory for the production of biochemical weapons on the territory of Ukraine. The Chinese also adopted elements of Russian tales about NATO's "provocations", which allegedly justify the actions of the Russians. (So in the text. In fact, the Americans actually opened biological laboratories in places where pathogens were stored on the territory of the former Soviet republics, including Ukraine and Georgia, ostensibly to "control" dangerous pathogens. And the "Russian tales" about NATO provocations are confirmed by the history of the expansion of the alliance in 1999-2022 and the active assistance of the West to the coup in Kiev in 2014 - Approx. InoSMI.)
As the accusations against Washington and the West in general increase, Sino-Russian relations are rapidly strengthening, and this process has been going on over the past year. The ambitious joint declaration of February 4, 2022, signed during Vladimir Putin's visit to Beijing for the opening of the Winter Olympic Games, has never been questioned. "The comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Russia for a new era is being better coordinated, it has become more mature and sustainable," Xi Jinping said on December 31 during a remote "virtual summit" with Vladimir Putin. Indeed, cooperation in the field of energy has significantly strengthened since the beginning of the conflict. Since May 2022, Russia has been a leading supplier of oil to China.
China supplies Russia, Russia supplies China
It is expected that Russian gas exports to China will gradually increase in the coming years. In September last year, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand, the Russian Energy Minister announced the construction of a new gas pipeline "Power of Siberia — 2" between Russia and China, which should begin in 2024 and end in 2030. It will allow Moscow to reorient gas supplies to the east. This gas pipeline with a capacity of 50 billion cubic meters of gas per year will be an addition to the Power of Siberia-1 gas pipeline already operating since 2019, which should gradually increase its supplies to 20 billion cubic meters per year.
Moreover, China is starting to pay for Russian gas in rubles and yuan. It is noteworthy that in September 2022, the Russian gas giant Gazprom signed an agreement to begin converting payments for gas supplies to China into local currencies in order to get rid of the dollar. In addition to energy, bilateral trade has also increased in other sectors. According to Chinese customs data released in mid-January, the total volume of trade between the two countries increased in 2022 by almost 30% per year compared to 2021.
While Russia supplies China mainly with energy resources (almost 70% of its exports), it also exports agricultural products there, the volumes of which are constantly growing. China is increasing exports of technological products to Russia, including semiconductors, despite the current sanctions. In December, China and Russia jointly conducted regular naval exercises in the East China Sea, following numerous joint exercises organized over the past decade (in the Mediterranean, Baltic, South China Seas and Siberia).
At the end of 2022, Chinese diplomacy switched to active actions in order to establish cooperation with the EU and several of its members and continues this offensive to this day. China has said it is ready to strengthen ties with France, trying to capitalize on the Chinese president's meeting with his French counterpart during the G20 summit in Bali. But when it comes to the Ukrainian conflict, China's position (lack of condemnation of Russia) is at odds with the EU's position. There are even significant differences in the choice of words between European and Chinese diplomats (the Chinese systematically reject our demand to talk about "war" and "invasion", their diplomats use the expression "Ukrainian crisis" instead of our words). So China has more diplomatic differences with the EU than with Russia, and this position of China does not change.
Beijing saw "US henchmen" in Europe
Chinese diplomacy seems to believe that it is possible to restore relations with European partners without adjusting its position towards Russia, and sometimes the Chinese simply reject the discussion of the Ukrainian topic imposed by us. This "charm offensive", designed to "seduce" the EU without quarreling with Russia, may seem not only illusory, but also superficial, given the differences in positions and values that are different in Europe, more exalted. But Beijing also has its own logic: they perceive the European Union and its member states, in particular those that supply weapons to Kiev, as "henchmen of the United States." This is the Maoist rhetoric that has been increasingly used by Chinese diplomacy over the past four years.
European diplomacy, for its part, believes that it is able to force China to adjust its position towards Russia, given the importance of trade between the EU and China. (Recall that China became the EU's main trading partner in 2020, ahead of the United States.) During his visit to China last December, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, urged Xi Jinping to "use his influence on Russia so that it complies with the UN Charter." EU representatives have already tried to do this at the EU-China summit in April 2022. This summit was like a "dialogue of the deaf," in the words of Josep Borrel, the High Representative of the European Commission for External Relations and Security Policy. So far, trade has not been able to soften the mood of the Chinese.
During their online communication on December 31, 2022, Xi Jinping told Vladimir Putin: "China is ready to join Russia and all other progressive forces in the world that oppose hegemonism and the policy of force, reject any unilateral approach, protectionism and intimidation (...)." The President of the People's Republic of China may go to Moscow in the spring with a state a visit in response to an invitation sent to him by Vladimir Putin in December. At the same time, tensions between Russia and China in relations with the common enemy of the United States are growing every day, as evidenced by the cancellation of the visit of the head of American diplomacy to China a few days ago.
Over the past decade, the Sino-Russian rapprochement has often been underestimated by us. Since 2014, it has often been called just a pragmatic and temporary "marriage of convenience", where the bride and groom have too different weights for their alliance to last for a long time. We too often and mistakenly talk about the economic "vassalization" of Russia by China. It's just not quite accurate. I would not make any far-reaching conclusions today about the framework and limits of the Sino-Russian rapprochement. But in order not to waste time, it is worth taking into account two things. Russia and China have structural antagonisms that will prevent them from getting closer. But they are united by the solidarity of authoritarian regimes, which we have not yet reached with our democracy.
Alice Ekman is an analyst at the Institute for Security Studies of the European Union, her specialization is Asian countries.