China shows unity with Russia and North Korea, but divisions linger
While Xi flaunted his relationship with Putin and Kim, their relationship falls far short of an actual military or political alliance that could impose its will on Eurasia.
The pageantry of China’s Xi Jinping, flanked by leaders of fellow nuclear powers Russia and North Korea as intercontinental ballistic missiles rolled through flag-waving crowds on Tiananmen Square, marked a new phase in the redrawing of the international order.
No longer circumspect about supporting his two rogue neighbours, Mr Xi flaunted Beijing’s growing links with Moscow and Pyongyang – both of them subjected to Western sanctions, both of them engaged in a bloody war against Ukraine and both of them potentially useful to China in a possible conflict with the US.
Despite becoming tighter, those relationships remain – for now at least – far short of an actual military or political alliance that could impose its will on the Eurasian landmass, the world’s wealthiest and most populous region.
“China is very cautious about working with these two countries. Unlike what is depicted in the West as them being allies, China is not in the same camp. Its view of warfare and security issues is very different from theirs,” said Tang Xiaoyang, chair of the department of international relations at Tsinghua University, pointing out that Beijing hasn’t fought a war for more than four decades. “What China wants is stability on its borders.”
The gap between Beijing’s aspirations and those of its junior partners, however, is clearly narrowing, Western diplomats and China watchers say. How fast and to what extent those contradictions could be bridged will determine the shape of the international system that is emerging after President Trump up-ended Washington’s network of alliances in Asia and Europe.
“China is becoming less discreet about being seen as part of the so-called axis of upheaval. Prompted by intensifying China-US competition, China wants to show that, contrary to America’s alienation of allies, it is better capable of uniting friends around itself,” said Tong Zhao, a senior fellow with the Carnegie China think tank. “China sees an opportunity to assert its own leadership when the US is undermining its international credibility.”
Wednesday’s parade in Beijing, which showcased China’s expanding military might and its increasing confidence in being able to win a conventional war against the US, followed a regional summit in the city of Tianjin that was also attended by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mr Xi used that summit to propose a vague but ambitious plan for a new “global governance initiative” that would create a more “just and equitable” international order – an order that is no longer dominated by the US.
The solidifying view among many in Beijing is that the current disarray in Washington and the rifts among the world’s leading democracies have handed China a unique chance – making it less necessary for Beijing to worry about the diplomatic fallout of getting too close to pariahs such as Russia and North Korea.
“China and Russia have a very strong shared understanding of how the new international order should work. We think that the American hegemony is ending – that’s an objective reality, it’s happening whether you recognise it or not,” said Wang Dong, a professor at the School of International Studies of Peking University in Beijing.
“Both sides – Russia and China – see their relationship as one of strategic importance, and not only because of an increase in animosity coming from Washington.”
Clear limits to that bond remain, added Xinbo Wu, dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. “Neither Russia nor China want to be involved in a major conflict where the other one is involved. If we had a major conflict with the US over the Taiwan issue, I don’t think Russia will come to our assistance,” he said. “We’re good friends, good partners, but that’s it. We will never become allies.”
Chinese officials stress that Beijing isn’t sending actual weapons to Russia, doesn’t recognise Russian claims on Ukrainian territory and doesn’t approve of North Korean participation in the conflict.
Yet, the images of Mr Xi in his Mao-style tunic, leaning toward North Korean leader Kim Jong-un or Russian President Vladimir Putin with explanations as some of the world’s deadliest weapons rolled by, undermine those assurances.
“The presence of Kim sent a message that China really stands by Putin and Russia’s war in Ukraine. It means that the fact of Kim sending troops to fight Ukraine did not cause China any serious discomfort,” said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London. “Inviting Kim was like a middle finger to the democratic West, saying that what you define as unacceptable is not something that we need to give a damn about.”
China’s military is learning from the Russian experience against Western weapons systems in Ukraine, and some Western officials say that China has given tacit approval for North Korean participation in the war so that Pyongyang could modernise and upgrade its own arsenal – a potential boon to Beijing in case of a multifront war against the West.
While China’s economic ties with North Korea are negligible, Russia and China had a bilateral trade of $US245 billion last year, a volume that shrank by 8 per cent during the first seven months of this year after several years of rapid growth. Virtually the entirety of Russian exports is made up of oil, gas and raw materials, while China provides Russia with its industrial output – including indispensable components for the Russian military industries.
“Being the two biggest powers of Eurasia, we cannot ignore current challenges and threats, be it on the scale of our common continent, or of the entire world,” Putin said in an interview with China’s Xinhua state news agency ahead of his visit to China. China said it was abolishing visa requirements for Russian citizens during Putin’s visit, a liberalisation already in force for most European and many Asian nations, aiming to bolster trade and tourism. Putin said Russia will reciprocate.
In Beijing’s Ritan shopping centre, once buzzing with Russian shoppers, halls are deserted nowadays. “We used to have a lot of business before the war, but now the Russians stopped coming because they don’t have any money, and when they do, they have a hard time taking it out because of the sanctions,” said Zhang Dun, who sells leather jackets and coats. A store selling Chinese tea, retail and wholesale, saw its business halve since the start of the war in Ukraine, echoed attendant Zhong Lili: “How can the Russians be coming here, visiting and spending money, if there is war in their country?”
In another Beijing mall, an empty store stocked Russian food – from salt to chocolates – for Chinese clients. A poster showed Putin eating ice cream atop a freezer with brands such as Stars of the Kremlin. “Most of the customers come here to ask for Putin’s favourite ice-cream flavour, ” said attendant Li Na. “But there aren’t many now.”
Beijing’s bond with Moscow isn’t cost-free: China’s relationship with most European nations, a much more important source of technology and trade, has suffered as a result of Beijing propping up the Russian war effort. “It’s very unfortunate that China-Europe relations are being kept as a hostage of this war,” said Da Wei, director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University. “This is a price that China has paid for the war, which is not wanted by China and not supported by China.” While debate on most political issues isn’t permitted in the tightly controlled Chinese society, a variety of views remains tolerated on Russia and the war in Ukraine, with some prominent scholars publicly voicing support for Kyiv’s resistance.
One of China’s leading strategists, Shi Yinhong, a distinguished professor at Renmin University, said that both Russia and North Korea, because of their adventurous behaviour on the world stage, are creating risks for Beijing, especially as China faces economic headwinds.
“One major liability now comes from the guy who is still waging his war in Europe, and a second liability comes from the guy who has for many years escalated his development of nuclear missiles, against all UN Security Council resolutions, and now also sent massive troops to Europe to help Russia fight that war,” Shi said.
China’s leadership believes that it would be against Beijing’s interest for Putin to lose the war in Ukraine, a belief that Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently expressed to his European interlocutors. But it isn’t clear at all that China would find it beneficial for Russia to win, achieving Putin’s war aims of turning Ukraine into a vassal state and possibly asserting a European sphere of influence beyond Ukraine.
“If Russia were to win, it would become more troublesome to China than now, when it is at war. It would have much less dependence on China’s economy and, if the Republican Party remains in the White House after Trump, Russia would have a bigger chance for a rapprochement with Washington, and China would worry about that,” Shi said.
Trump’s current attempts to split Russia away from China don’t elicit much angst in Beijing because of calculations that Putin wouldn’t put much faith into promises by a White House that is so erratic and unpredictable – a view shared by many Russia analysts.
Much of Mr Xi’s foreign policy over the past decade has been guided by a plan for “national rejuvenation” that would overcome the legacy of the “century of humiliation,” when China was torn apart by predatory colonial powers. Reclaiming the Chinese state’s control over Taiwan is a central part of that idea. Yet, the one remaining major legacy of past colonialism is the annexation of large parts of China by Russia, areas that make up the sparsely populated Russian Far East region.
That history still colours Chinese perceptions of the relationship with Moscow. “Russia took the largest piece of land fromChina, during the Qing dynasty. In modern history, during the era of humiliation, China suffered mostly from two countries – one is Russia and the other is Japan. People still have vivid memories of the past, and it’s very difficult to forget,” said Wu of Fudan University.
Yet the message from China’s leadership isn’t to dwell on that history, at least not now. “We know what happened in the past, but we want to focus on the future,” said Victor Gao, vice president of the Center for China and Globalisation think tankin Beijing. “The whole country is very much geared toward Russia-China co-operation.”
The Wall Street Journal
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