What Russia should learn about the limits of ideology in the real world, China should too

Putin wants to restore Russia to what he perceives as its former glory, but his invasion of Ukraine is unlikely to play out as he wishes. China, with its dream of national rejuvenation, will surely be watching

Alexander Görlach

Published: 1:00am, 5 Mar 2022

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President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have grown closer in the last couple of months. This was particularly obvious when Putin was made Xi’s guest of honour at the opening gala of the Winter Olympics earlier this year. Nothing could come between the two new friends, the two declared in a joint statement after their meeting on the sidelines.

However, the recognition of the separatist regions Donetsk and Luhansk by Putin three weeks later put the new friendship under strain. Beijing would not have been keen on supporting this step, having argued that the “territorial integrity” of a sovereign state should remain untouched. In the eyes of the Communist Party, accepting the two territories as new countries would leave room for the statehood of Taiwan, which Beijing views as a breakaway province.

From one perspective, the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian military is more aligned with Beijing’s aim of reunification between Taiwan and China. Putin’s rhetoric in this case resembles that of Xi. The “Holy Rus”, according to Putin, includes Ukraine and the Baltic states. He therefore does not regard those countries as legitimate, sovereign states, but as inseparable parts of Russia. Putin wants to restore Russia to what he perceives as its former glory – a glory stolen by Western nations in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Beijing on February 4. The leaders emphasised the strong friendship between their countries after the gathering, a friendship now being tested after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Photo: AP

President Xi also wants to end the “century of humiliation” inflicted on China by Western powers. The “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” will therefore only be complete when Taiwan is incorporated into the People’s Republic of China. Achieving this goal, international observers have no doubt, would mean an invasion of the island.

Beijing, by contrast, would call it an internal affair – hence the unwillingness by a spokesperson of the Chinese foreign ministry to call Russia’s military action in Ukraine an “invasion”.

Both Putin and Xi have vowed to achieve their respective goals regarding Ukraine and Taiwan in a similar fashion. Both see themselves working for and on the behalf of “History” – perhaps best understood as some kind of mythological goddess (comparable with Fortuna, the Greek goddess of fate). In both leaders’ world views, History has granted a special place for their countries.

In the case of China, this idea is already manifested in its name: Zhongguo, or, “the realm in the centre of the world”. Russia, meanwhile, sees itself as heir to the Roman Empire, as once did the Franks, the Ottomans and others. For Putin, Orthodox Christianity is the thread running from antiquity to the present that underpins this claim.

The grand narrative driving Putin’s vision for Russia and Ukraine

Such historical speculation is not alien to European observers. From Hegel to Marx, ideas about the purpose and destination of history have been rampant in Western thought. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel envisaged multiple realms over the trajectory of time, each one better than the last. He saw the European empire of his time as the fulfilment of the will of history.

Karl Marx understood history as a class struggle brought to its end by a victorious working class. In the current era, Samuel Huntington and Francis Fukuyama build on this notion in their books Clash of Civilisations and The End of History.

At the root of this historical speculation is Western Christianity, which sees the history of the world as a history of salvation, beginning with creation, culminating in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and ending with his second coming.

For the most part, European countries have abandoned this religious understanding of history and therefore fail to understand what really motivates both Putin and Xi. Already, in the 1960s, sociologist Elias Canetti had declared in his masterpiece Crowds and Power that the loss of faith across what was once known as the Christian Occident was the reason Europe failed in mobilising its population.

What history (with a lower case “h”) does teach is that political figures eventually lead their countries astray when they embrace quasi-religious ideology. So far, the invasion of Ukraine has not gone well for Putin. He has failed to achieve the goals he set for the first days of his military endeavour.

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Beijing is certainly watching closely to see how the battle for Ukraine will play out. In abstaining from the vote in the UN Security Council, China sent a clear signal to Russia and the world about where it draws the line in its new-found friendship with Putin: national sovereignty over hazardous military-led reunification adventures.

Xi might have been tempted to finally invade Taiwan while the rest of the world, particularly the US, is engaged in Eastern Europe. At the same time, the resilience shown by the people of Ukraine in defending their country may serve as inspiration for the people of Taiwan. China, having urged Russia and Ukraine to return to the negotiating table, might itself return to it, arguing out the conflict with Taiwan rather than threatening its Taiwanese sisters and brothers with military force.

Dr Alexander Görlach is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York