Š‹ƒ ƒ‹† —••‹ƒ ™‹–Š ‰—•
LONDON – The consequences are almost beyond imagination. Everything about Vladimir Putin’s insane invasion of Ukraine has been unthinkable - but if China weighs in with open support for the Russian dictator’s beleaguered army, then our whole way of life could be threatened.
President Xi Jinping’s government is already bankrolling the Kremlin, underwriting the war by boosting imports of Russian oil, gas and agricultural goods shunned by the West. It is building a new gas pipeline to China from Russia and supplying ‘dual-use’ technology such as drones - supposedly for civilian use, but used by Russia for reconnaissance.
But there’s a red line, one drawn in blood. The Chinese will cross it if they start supplying arms to Russia. Putin is pressing hard for that to happen and US Intelligence has concluded that Xi Jinping may be preparing to provide ‘lethal support’. Just on Wednesday, China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, met Putin in Moscow to reaffirm their ‘ongoing co-operation’. What else they discussed, we do not yet know.
But if the day comes when China starts openly providing weapons, it will redefine global politics in a way we haven’t seen since the Cold War.
Cataclysm
Even the darkest days of the simmering conflict between the USSR and Nato cannot compare to the cataclysm threatening to engulf us if China gives arms to Russia. As a longtime foreign correspondent in Moscow, the Indo-Pacific and China, I am accustomed to dictators’ sabre-rattling. But Putin is now openly menacing Ukraine and all Europe with both implicit and explicit threats of its nuclear arsenal in a manner never seen before.
Meanwhile, China has quietly been growing its own nuclear strike force. By 2035 it is expected to have 1 500 warheads ready to fire - every one of them carrying a destructive power that dwarfs the bombs dropped in 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We last faced a nuclear stand-off during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and that lasted only a few days. Should Xi and Putin combine forces, the threat to the world would be unimaginably worse.
This week they were engaged in a 10-day naval exercise in the Indian Ocean, alongside South African warships. They have gone beyond symbolic shows of camaraderie and are co-ordinating their ability to fight together on the battlefield.