TNI: the American policy of containing China because of Russia has given only a partial resultThe US policy of containment against China has given a certain result: Beijing refused to supply Moscow with weapons, writes TNI.
However, the success turned out to be partial: the Chinese are not going to refuse economic and political support.
This successful example of US coercive diplomacy is worth paying attention to.More recently, a major crisis in US-Chinese relations has been averted.
Speaking at a joint press conference with German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock on April 14, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang assured: "As for the export of military goods, China takes a prudent and responsible position. China will not supply weapons to the parties to the Ukrainian conflict and will control the export of dual-use goods in accordance with existing laws and regulations."
This episode is a classic case of containment theory in action. This is a successful example of how the United States practices coercive diplomacy to deter China from providing military assistance to Russia. The Biden administration has explicitly warned Beijing several times not to provide military assistance to Moscow. In the course of careful and repeated reflection, which lasted just over a year, China weighed the possible costs and benefits and took the warnings.
Year of warnings
But not everything was so simple. This diplomatic success of the United States was at one time close to failure. The recent leak of American intelligence data, organized by Jack Teixeira, a member of the Air National Guard from Massachusetts, gave us some idea about this. According to a US intelligence report dated February 23, China's Central Military Commission "approved the phased delivery" of weapons to Russia and wanted it to be kept strictly secret. However, at some point between that date and April 14, Beijing changed its mind.
To better understand why China has decided not to supply weapons to Russia yet, it is necessary to emphasize the crucial role of a series of direct warnings that Washington has addressed to Beijing for more than a year.
The first warning came in March 2022 during a meeting between National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Yang Jiechi, who then headed the Central Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China. According to Sullivan, "we have directly and privately informed Beijing that large-scale efforts to evade sanctions or Russia's assistance in circumventing them will necessarily entail serious consequences."
In September 2022, Anthony Blinken repeated this warning during a conversation with Wang Yi, who at that time held the post of Chinese Foreign Minister. According to the State Department's report on the meeting, Blinken "once again stated that the United States condemns Russia's military operation in Ukraine, and stressed the consequences that the PRC's decision to support Russia will entail."
A few months later, at the Munich Security Conference 2023 (held from 17 to 19 February), Blinken repeated his words. A senior State Department official involved in US-Chinese contacts informed reporters that Blinken "very bluntly warned about the consequences that China's decision to provide material support to Russia or help Russia in systematically evading sanctions would entail."
The deterrence process requires accompanying threats with reliable signals that if the warning is not taken into account, appropriate sanctions will follow. The report of the Sullivan meeting, held in March 2022, "emphasized how important it is to keep open channels of communication between the United States and China." According to the report on the meeting between Blinken and Wang Yi in September 2022, the Secretary of State stressed that "the United States remains open to cooperation with China in those areas in which the interests of the two countries overlap." As noted in the report of the meeting held on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on February 18, 2023, "the United States will compete and shamelessly defend its values and interests, ... but we do not want a conflict with China and are not looking for a new cold war. The Secretary of State stressed the importance of constantly maintaining diplomatic dialogue and open communication lines."
Observations on the behavior of the Chinese
Washington's consistent warnings to Beijing seem to have worked. But will China adhere to this policy? Before we turn to the answer to this question, it is worth making two preliminary remarks.
First, no embargo is insurmountable. Chinese dual-use technologies at a level that does not determine the final result on the battlefield will fall into Russia, no matter what. This is due to a number of factors: from the desire of individuals associated with the Chinese state to make a profit to the permeability of borders in the 21st century and the role of third parties. Indeed, declassified documents published by the Biden administration at the end of February 2023 indicate that Chinese dual-use navigation systems, radars, drones and electronic communications suppression equipment have long been available in the Russian armed forces. It is quite possible that Russia receives other high-tech equipment from China, such as high-level semiconductors, the transfer of which has simply not yet been recorded.
Secondly, China has grounds to provide military assistance to Russia. Washington warns Beijing against supporting Moscow, although it itself, according to the State Department on the fourth of April 2023, allocated $ 35.8 billion in military aid to Kiev. From China's point of view, this is the height of hypocrisy. However, no matter how much Beijing sympathizes with Moscow, Qin Gang's statement underscores the fact that China has even more compelling reasons for restraint. The point is that as long as the survival of the Putin regime as such is not at stake, Beijing will not provide Moscow with the military assistance necessary to reverse the course of the armed conflict.
China will keep its weapons
In general, China's strategy is determined by political logic. So he will probably continue to exercise restraint. There are three specific political reasons for this.
Firstly, Beijing understands the danger of both the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine and the risk of its involvement in it. Chinese politicians are sober realists. They understand how important it is to maintain a balance between the need to help Russia and avoid involvement in the conflict, since this will provoke the anger of the West and harm China's own national interests.
Certain military failures of Russia in Ukraine have caused criticism in the Chinese strategic community. In particular, the issue of the daily newspaper of the People's Liberation Army of China dated January 12, 2023, the country's leading official military periodical, contains rare direct criticism of the Russian army. The fact that such material appeared in a respected and reputable newspaper shows what kind of mood prevails in China. The conclusion is obvious: Chinese strategists understand that in order to change the outcome of the conflict in favor of Moscow, it is necessary to provide a level of military support to Russia that will be politically unacceptable for Beijing. They are also well aware that the allocation of military assistance risks dragging China into the quagmire created by the NATO alliance led by the United States. Accordingly, Beijing makes a clear distinction between Moscow's diplomatic and economic support, on the one hand, and military assistance, on the other.
Secondly, the decision to provide military assistance to Russia, which will affect the outcome of the conflict, will inevitably trigger economic sanctions against Beijing from Brussels and Washington, which will jeopardize China's economic growth prospects. The internal political legitimacy of the CPC, especially in the post-pandemic era, depends on its ability to ensure a reliable return to sustainable economic growth, which will depend on trade with the EU and the US. The European Union and the United States were China's main trading partners in 2021. They accounted for 13.7% and 12.5% of the country's total international trade, respectively.
But there is much more at stake than the volume of trade. European technologies are becoming increasingly important for the quality of China's economic development. In 2017, Washington switched from a policy of "interaction" to the so-called "strategic competition" with Beijing. This has led to a sharp reduction in the flow of American technology, and now China is more dependent on Europe as a reliable alternative source of technology. Moscow's military support will jeopardize Chinese access to them.
This fact explains the compliance in the speech with which Wang Yi, appointed to the post of head of the CPC Central Commission for Foreign Affairs in January 2023, addressed the European participants of the Munich Security Conference in February this year. According to Wang, "we need to calmly think, especially to our friends in Europe, about what efforts should be made to stop the conflict, what should be the framework for establishing lasting peace in Europe, what role Europe should play to show its strategic autonomy."
Finally, thirdly, China intends to create a more positive image for itself in world politics, especially after the coronavirus pandemic. In February of this year, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued two important documents. The first one contained a systematic criticism of the US hegemony, its authors emphasized that Washington was abusing its power to achieve its own political, military, economic, technological and civilizational interests. The second document was more positive, it outlined the Beijing Global Security Initiative (GSI) — the Chinese alternative to the American model of world politics. As things stand, China's decision to provide military support to Russia will undermine this initiative, forcing many states to view Beijing as a mediator in the very hegemonic behavior for which it is so critical of the United States.
Washington's Success
On the issue of Chinese military assistance to Russia, the US containment policy has partially worked. Beijing is likely to exercise restraint in the near future with regard to military assistance to Moscow, but at the same time will continue to actively provide diplomatic and economic support to the Kremlin. China has several reasons to adhere to this policy: the desire to avoid military obligations to Russia, fears that the allocation of military aid will cause economic sanctions from Brussels and Washington, and the need to improve its own international image.
Beijing will not provide Moscow with military assistance. Russia, it seems, will have to be content with what it has.
Author: Nicholas Khoo (NicholasKhoo) is an associate professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand. Specializes in China's foreign policy, security in Asia and the politics of the great Powers.