End of the bromance: why Xi is wary of going to Moscow
When President Putin and President Xi met at the Beijing Olympics in February, weeks before the invasion of Ukraine, China and Russia declared that the friendship between the two superpowers knew “no limits”.
Yet as the fighting in Ukraine grinds on, it has become clear that for Xi political considerations take precedence over any “bromance” with Putin. China may have blamed Nato expansion for the war but it is also making sure it is not dragged into the conflict.
The United States said recently that it had not seen China provide Russia with military equipment. Significantly, China has refused to acknowledge the independence of the two separatist republics in eastern Ukraine that Russia recognised as sovereign states shortly before Putin launched his invasion. Nor has it acknowledged Russian rule in Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Xi’s cautious approach to relations with Russia during what is the largest armed conflict in Europe since 1945 was highlighted this week by reports that he had declined an invitation to pay a reciprocal visit to Putin in Moscow. Diplomatic sources cited by a Japanese newspaper said that the overture was rebuffed for fear it would unnecessarily exacerbate tensions with the West. Xi has made only one trip outside of mainland China since the pandemic, and that was to Hong Kong last week. He is anxious to ensure domestic and foreign stability in the run-up to a Communist Party congress at which he is expected to seek a precedent-setting third term of office, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported.
The Kremlin, for its part, said that Xi’s trip to Moscow was still on but would take place after Covid restrictions in China were lifted. A spokesman for Beijing made all the right noises about the strength of Moscow and Beijing’s relationship but neither confirmed nor denied the Japanese report.
Analysts say that while the two countries are united by anti-American sentiment, Beijing is unwilling to take risks to support Moscow’s war, including crossing Washington’s red lines on sanction-busting. The US placed five Chinese companies on an export blacklist last month for allegedly providing support to the Russian military. It was unclear what support they had provided, but the White House added that it had seen no evidence of any systematic attempt by Beijing to help Moscow evade western sanctions.
“China is in a precarious diplomatic position. It doesn’t want to appear to be too close to Putin, while at the same time [it says] its relationship with Russia is of paramount importance,” Alexander Gabuev, an Asia specialist at the Carnegie think tank, said. China’s exports to Russia have plummeted in the months since the invasion began, according to a study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, another indication that Chinese companies are wary about violating western sanctions.
Yet while Beijing’s support for Putin is less than enthusiastic, there is little chance that it will “throw Russia under the bus” by introducing its own sanctions or directly criticising the invasion of Ukraine. That, analysts say, is because such a move would be unlikely to result in a significant change in America’s policies towards Beijing, including over Taiwan, which it has pledged to support in the event of a Chinese attack.
Gabuev said: “The West would just pocket China’s concessions, so the view from Beijing is, ‘why would we destroy the partnership with Russia?’ But at the same time it’s, ‘let’s not be stupid and cross America’s red lines’. That’s a pretty pragmatic approach.”
As ever, much of the relationship between the two countries is open to interpretation. Last week Moscow sent three warships into the volatile waters close to Taiwan, the first time it has done so. Beijing has not commented on the deployment, but most western and Taiwanese analysts agree that Russia was extremely unlikely to have sailed the ships into the region without its consent. Some said it may have been a show of support for China, or a sign that Russia’s navy was conducting business as usual during the war in Ukraine.
What is clear, however, is that Putin’s invasion has underlined Russia’s role as the junior partner in the relationship between the two nations. While China is wary about supporting the Kremlin’s war machine, it has no qualms about snapping up oil that Russia has been forced to sell at a discount after burning its bridges with the West. “When the [western] oil embargo strikes, and when Russia cuts off the gas to Europe, and I think that it’s a matter of when rather than if China will become the towering presence as an importer of Russia’s resources, because Russia has basically nowhere else to go. That’s the only single big buyer,” Gabuev said.
Beijing is unlikely to be shy about using this leverage to try to dictate Russia’s policies, including pressure to share military technology and halt arms sales to India and Vietnam. China also wants to train troops in the Arctic, where Russia is opening military bases as part of a drive to exploit untapped natural resources. “China will use Russia while Russia will increasingly depend on China,” Daniel Treisman, a Russia expert, told the Foreign Affairs website. “As someone once said, the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
Russia’s increasing dependence on China may strip the country of any pretence that it is a democracy. Its leaders are, in theory, elected directly by the people, unlike one-party China, and it has numerous political parties, although they are largely regarded as Putin’s puppets.
“They who taught us for decades, no, no, no, society must be free, a developed economy can’t exist without a developed political system or a free political system — all of that is total crap,” Margarita Simonyan, head of the Kremlin-backed RT television channel, said. “But just look at China, do you like China’s economy? I like it. Do they have any freedom? No, they don’t and never had. Maybe that’s not bad, maybe that’s a good thing.”
