Despite close ties with Russia, China’s Ukraine stance is based on its own interests, analysts say
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Despite increased Western distrust of China’s relationship with Russia as the Ukraine war drags on, analysts expect Beijing to maintain close ties with Moscow while seeking to balance relations with the West.
Yun Sun, director of the China programme at the Washington-based Stimson Centre, said China had developed its relationship with Russia on the basis of its strategic interests.
“It will not deepen the ties to Russian satisfaction, nor will it cut ties to Western satisfaction,” she said. “That is the path that serves China’s interests the best.
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“The war will not last forever. China does want the war to end soon, but Beijing will not let it happen at the expense of Russia being wiped out by the West.”
Jean-Pierre Cabestan, emeritus professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University, said the relationship between Beijing and Moscow would continue to be strong as it was based on a shared opposition to US-led alliance systems.
“The China-Russia strategic partnership has remained very strong and I don’t think that its foundations have changed or weakened … the close partnership remains, in my view, a quasi-alliance based on a strong and shared opposition to the US and its alliance systems both in Europe – Nato – and in Asia – US security treaties with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines in particular,” he said.
But Zhao Long, senior fellow and deputy director of the Institute for Global Governance Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said China did not intend to unite with Russia to oppose the West and instead pursued a balanced and stable foreign policy.
“China has no intention of building an ‘anti-West’ united front with Russia,” he said. “China still insists on building a framework of major-country relations with overall stability and balanced development.
“The outside world has misunderstood the statement that China-Russia cooperation has ‘no limit, no restricted area, and no upper limit’. The so-called unlimited cooperation has a clear premise, that is, it will not exceed the boundaries of their respective strategic positioning and capabilities, nor will they exceed reasonable demands and development needs.”
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Beijing has been hesitant to condemn Russia since the war began and has, like Moscow, blamed the US and Nato for starting the conflict. But it has also shied away from further involvement, whether on meeting Europe’s demands that it put pressure on Putin or in displaying explicit support for Russia.
Meia Nouwens, senior fellow for Chinese security and defence policy at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said Xi’s message to Putin at that meeting was a signal that not all was well in the bilateral relationship.
“China and Russia have maintained in public that their relationship remains strong,” she said. “However, we’ve seen efforts by the Chinese government to underline that it is not an alliance and we also saw in the Xi-Putin meeting last year an acknowledgement by Putin that China has ‘concerns’ about the current situation. I think that should be understood as a tacit signal that not all is well in the bilateral relationship.
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“Of course, despite this, China will continue to view the bilateral relationship with Russia through a lens of US-China competition and rivalry, so despite any frustrations Beijing might have it will not walk away from its ‘friendship’ with Russia any time soon.”
Pan Dawei, director of the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said the high degree of political trust between China and Russia would not see them push away from each other, with the robustness of their ties already shown in the way China reacted to previous conflicts like the Russo-Georgian war and the Crimea crisis.
“It is not the first time for China to encounter these similar situations, such as the Crimea issue, and when problems occurred between Georgia and Russia,” he said. “China maintained its existing diplomatic stance and policy and did not let these issues affect its relations with Russia.”
China refrained from recognising Crimea as part of Russia in 2014 and South Ossetia and Abkhazia as sovereign states during the Russo-Georgian war in 2008.
“It will not keep its distance from Russia because of certain issues, there is no need for this,” Pan said. “It will continue what it should do, from the standpoint of safeguarding our own national interests. It will develop relations with Russia normally and in an all-round way.”
China has been the major beneficiary of cheaper Russian energy exports amid Western sanctions on Moscow. Russia overtook Saudi Arabia as China’s largest oil supplier for a third of last year, and is also its second-largest supplier of pipeline gas and fourth-largest provider of liquefied natural gas.
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Bilateral trade hit a record US$190.27 billion last year, a year-on-year increase of 29.3 per cent.
The two countries also held multiple joint military exercises last year, including the Vostok exercises in Russia’s Far East and the Sea of Japan, joint naval drills in the East China Sea, and trilateral drills with Iran.
Nouwens said that although Beijing had benefited from the energy partnership with Russia, it had been “careful not to cross the line to military aid in support of the war”. She said that while recent US reports had suggested that components had been traded between Chinese and Russian companies during the war, it was “unclear to what extent Beijing knew about and approved this”.
Analysts said Xi and Putin were likely to criticise the US and Nato if they met in Moscow.
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Zhao said Xi would reiterate China’s consistent position on the Ukraine issue, which was “calling on all parties to exercise restraint and resume dialogue and negotiations as soon as possible, instead of simply ‘choosing sides’ based on the Western logic”.
“It will not be swayed by fear of Western pressure and slow down the deepening of China-Russia strategic cooperation,” he said.
Cabestan said: “Xi will both show China’s close partnership with Russia and present himself as a force for peace, asking questions on the future of the war, and wishing that a peace negotiation will eventually open. But he will refrain from criticising Putin and will share with him criticism of the West, Nato and especially the US, denouncing in particular the delivery of offensive weapons – tanks, and later fighter jets – to Ukraine.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently invited Xi to take part in dialogue, and as a close economic partner of both Russia and Ukraine, China has often been seen as a potential mediator in the conflict.
Analysts also said that while China was keeping its communication channel with Ukraine open, talks between Xi and Zelensky were unlikely in the near future.
“Until China has a clearer sense from Russia about whether it is ready to talk, I don’t think Xi will meet with Zelensky,” Sun said. “Such a meeting has many political implications, and until China knows clearly what such a meeting will lead to, it is in no hurry to have such a meeting.”
Cabestan said China might send a lower level envoy to Kyiv, such as foreign policy head Wang Yi or Foreign Minister Qin Gang.
China’s position on Ukraine has put relations with the EU under further strain by adding to existing tensions over human rights and national security concerns. The US has also pressed European countries to follow its lead and limit China’s access to sensitive technologies by imposing export controls on semiconductors.
Meanwhile, the recent shooting down of a suspected Chinese spy balloon by the US has led to a further cooling of China-US relations, which had shown some signs of a thaw after Xi met US President Joe Biden at the Group of 20 Summit in Indonesia in November.
Pan said China was still committed to developing normal relations with both the US and EU despite disagreements over Ukraine.
“China’s trade with the United States, Europe and other countries is gradually recovering, becoming more normal, and tending to grow and develop,” he said. “China will not damage our country’s interests because of a war or conflict in a certain region.”