Outside In | China has too much at stake to stand with Russia against the West

Name: What China could gain, and lose, in the Ukraine-Russia crisis
Uploaded: 2022-03-18T03:30:20.000Z
Duration: 7 min 14 s
Description: What China could gain, and lose, in the Ukraine-Russia crisis

China has a huge vested interest in global stability which ensures its people’s prosperity. While Beijing clearly needs to keep relations with Moscow on an even keel, it will not risk attracting economic warfare from the West

Reading Time:4 minutes

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Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin enter a hall for talks in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on June 5, 2019. Photo: AP

David Dodwell

Published: 11:30am, 18 Mar 2022

Here’s the doomsday scenario: first, Russian President Vladimir Putin “reclaims” Ukraine and installs a puppet regime that forces a rebalancing of military power in Europe. Second, Europe’s economies flounder as energy supplies dry up and military budgets rocket.

Third, China backstops Russia with promises to buy its exports to save it from crippling sanctions, then gets sanctions slapped on itself by an increasingly bellicose United States. Fourth, China launches a short, sharp assault on Taiwan, confident that the US will be too tied up elsewhere to intervene.

Lastly, an Armageddon-like world war erupts – even if it doesn’t, the globally integrated economy disintegrates, along with the free and open trade that has built wealth, peace and stability over six decades.

This is all a ridiculous nightmare, I hope. But it is alarming that so many governments have had to take such a scenario seriously. If ever there was a moment in the past half a century when we need cool, calm, considered thought among leaders, this is surely it.

Nowhere is this more true than for China. Some hotheads seem to be willing China on to align with Russia, fully aware of the disaster that could follow. Mischievous rumours that Putin gave Chinese President Xi Jinping warning of the invasion plan and asked for military support have added fuel to the fire.

07:14

What China could gain, and lose, in the Ukraine-Russia crisis

Mercifully, I think these hotheads are wrong. While the depth of China’s diplomatic dilemma has been made clear by its fence-sitting over the past weeks, and while it is clear that China is too large and too critical to the global economy to sit on the fence for long, it seems clear it is not about to become Putin’s stooge.

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Outside In | China has too much at stake to stand with Russia against the West