Beijing-Moscow axis
In the geopolitics of the 1970s, the United States’ seismic decision to normalize relations with Communist China and lift a ban on sales of sensitive military technology to Beijing was known as “playing the China card” to thwart the Soviet Union.
With President Xi Jinping’s three-day visit to Moscow this month, China has shown it is willing to play what might be called the Russia card to counter what Mr. Xi considers to be U.S. attempts to surround China and contain its economic and military rise.
China and Russia share a common apprehension of encirclement by the United States and NATO. Russia sees NATO’s eastward expansion as an existential threat, the main stated justification for its invasion of Ukraine. China, meanwhile, fears the United States is trying to create an “Indo-Pacific NATO” with a string of Asian defense agreements from the Philippines to Australia.
Moreover, China and Russia both have a disdain for democratic values and a rules-based world order, which they see as outdated and dominated by the United States. When the two leaders met, Mr. Putin congratulated Mr. Xi on his “re-election” to an unprecedented third term as president. Mr. Xi said he expected Mr. Putin to prevail in his own re-election in 2024.
Then there is the fact that Russia and China also hold the world’s largest and third-largest nuclear weapons stockpiles. China is expanding its nuclear arsenal to try to reach parity with the United States within the next decade.
Russia is clearly now the junior partner in this “no limits” friendship between Moscow and Beijing. Shorn of Western markets and its economy hammered by sanctions, Russia needs China to increase its purchases of oil, gas and grain, and to supply some of the Western goods that have disappeared from the shelves.
China has also continued to supply Russia with aerial drones, drone parts, and semiconductors. But there have been no reports so far of Beijing providing lethal weapons, something the Biden administration has warned would be crossing a red line.
Despite its pro-Russia stance, China has suggested it might be a potential peacemaker in Ukraine. There was some thin hope this might actually be the case, after China helped broker a diplomatic rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia after a seven-year break. And Mr. Xi went to Moscow touting a supposed 12-point “peace plan” for ending the conflict. But unsurprisingly, it turned out to be no more than a series of bromides about the need for dialogue and restraint.
An appeal to self-interest might help convince Mr. Xi to use his growing friendship with Mr. Putin to push for a real solution to the conflict. China’s economic and trade relations with Europe are far more crucial than with Russia, and Mr. Xi should be reminded of this whenever he meets visiting European officials.