Vladimir Putin’s failures test his ‘unbreakable’ relationship with Xi Jinping

Jeju: Just seven months ago, Vladimir Putin stood at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing confident the troops he had amassed on the Ukrainian border would sweep to an easy victory.

On Thursday night, the Russian president sat across the table from his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, his troops demoralised, and conquered provinces breached.

The close friendship between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin is being tested.Credit: AP

Russia’s war is bogged down in choked supply lines, inefficient tactics and falling public morale. In eastern Ukraine, it has lost Izium and Kupiansk, and Lyman is within reach. It is losing the support of sensible political analysts in Moscow and regional leaders in Asia.

China is the only major or middle power game enough to be publicly identified as its friend, but the concessions in Putin’s opening statement on Thursday night show just how tested even that “unbreakable” relationship has become.

“We appreciate our Chinese friends’ balanced position in connection with the Ukraine crisis,” Putin told Xi. “We understand your questions and your concerns in this regard.”

Questions? Concerns? Putin has spent the best part of a year incarcerating any prominent Russian who may have questioned the war. A few have found themselves too close to a windowsill. Now the Russian president was pre-emptively addressing the concerns of his Chinese counterpart. It was a significant admission to his weakened position, both at home and abroad.

Xi recalled the optimism of their last meeting. “In February, we took pleasure in the joint celebration of the beginning of spring and the opening of the Winter Olympics, as well as our discussion of the ambitious plans to expand Sino-Russian relations.”

But he ended on a more pragmatic note.

“In the face of ongoing formidable global changes that have never been seen in history, we are ready to work with our Russian colleagues to set an example of what a responsible global power is and assume leadership in order to bring the rapidly changing world onto a path of sustainable and positive development.”

With Putin’s power diminished, Xi had to tread a delicate line in Samarkand.

The Shanghai Co-operation Forum (SCO) was founded by China to foster ties with Central Asia. It is the successful embodiment of what Beijing has tried to do in the Pacific – create a network of states sympathetic to its aims through promises of economic development.

Now more than two decades old, it is a key source of diplomatic support for Beijing in wider multilateral institutions. But as former Soviet republics, its members, including Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, are also wary of Russia and its territorial ambitions.

Evan Feigenbaum, a former US assistant deputy secretary of state, said Xi had made a personal investment in Putin’s ambitions but had to be careful not to drive a wedge with China’s other neighbours, particularly as Russia’s war machine sputters.

Feigenbaum said, for this reason, Xi would continue the “Beijing straddle”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, talk during their meeting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.Credit: AP

“Beijing’s goal is surely to preserve its entente with Russia at the strategic level, to counterbalance American power and growing economic pressure on China from the West,” he wrote for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“But it wants to do this without having to back Moscow at the tactical level, since it also benefits from preserving global market access, avoiding Western sanctions, and building relations with countries, like those in Central Asia, that are terrified of Russia.”

The SCO is also about to get a new member, Iran. “Tehran views joining the SCO as an important diplomatic achievement,” said Anna Jordanová, a visiting fellow at the Bourse and Bazaar Foundation.

China can now add Iran to its list of multilateral partners dissatisfied with the West.

In more confident times: Putin stands during the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Credit: AP

Beijing is forging its own alternative world order. Russia is struggling to rebuild its empire.

“It is no exaggeration to call it the new Cold War era,” said the head of the South Korean Jeju Forum, Woo Keun-min. “It is plunged into the vortex of crisis.”

For now, Xi and Putin’s uneasy quid-pro-quo continues to suit both their interests.

Russia’s long campaign destabilises global affairs, puts economic pressure on Europe and the United States and allows China to court developing countries away from the Western-led international order.

Putin, running low on supplies, equipment and military insight, can boast of the tacit support of the leader of the world’s second-largest economy.

But having failed to win the war within six months, he is now in a far weaker position than the one he was in on that freezing night at the top of the Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing in February.

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