Advertisement
Advertisement
Ukraine war: 1 year on
Get more with myNEWS
A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you
Learn more
Illustration: Lau Ka-kuen

Despite close ties with Russia, China’s Ukraine stance is based on its own interests, analysts say

  • Putin invitation to Xi puts strategic partners’ ties under microscope once again
  • ‘No-limits’ Sino-Russian friendship misunderstood in West, says Chinese expert
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has led to tens of thousands of deaths on both sides and created Europe’s largest refugee wave since World War II. In this multimedia series marking the one-year anniversary of the conflict, we look at China’s response to what Russian President Vladimir Putin called a “special military operation” and its diplomatic, military, monetary and economic impact.
Amid intense scrutiny a year into the Ukraine war, China is expected to engage Russia closely and manage ties carefully while weighing its interests in relation to the United States and US allies, analysts said.
China’s relationship with Russia has been under close scrutiny since they pledged themselves to a “no limits friendship” just weeks before the Ukraine war broke out a year ago. As the war enters its second year, a possible trip to Moscow by President Xi Jinping at the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin has again put the strategic partners’ ties under the microscope.
Although China has never voiced support for Russia’s actions in the war, its position has been described as opaque because the two countries maintain a strong trade relationship despite Western sanctions on Moscow, further complicating Beijing’s already strained relations with the West. While Washington continues to look for evidence that Beijing is supporting Moscow’s efforts on the battlefield, the European Union is demanding that Xi use his influence on Putin to help end the war.

02:55

Vladimir Putin invites Xi Jinping to visit as Russian and Chinese leaders look to deepen ties

Vladimir Putin invites Xi Jinping to visit as Russian and Chinese leaders look to deepen ties

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.

Top Chinese diplomat and Macron discuss Ukraine war during meeting in Paris

“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.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Xi Jinping held talks at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in September. Photo: AP

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.”

Pushing for ‘complete victory’ won’t end Ukraine war, China’s EU envoy says

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.

China and Russia’s relationship has evolved since the war broke out. Beijing started out by supporting security guarantees for Russia and refusing to condemn it at the United Nations or join in the imposition of unilateral sanctions. But Xi expressed “concerns” to Putin about Ukraine when they met in person at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in September for the first time since the war started.

01:54

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin speak in person for first time since Russia invaded Ukraine

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin speak in person for first time since Russia invaded Ukraine

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.

Ukraine war: G7 weighs sanctioning Chinese firms for aiding Russia’s military

“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.

Russian soldiers take part in a military parade in Volgograd, Russia, on February 2 marking the 80th anniversary of the Red Army’s victory over German troops in the Battle of Stalingrad during World War II. Photo: Reuters

“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.

China warns of weapons ‘pouring into Ukraine battlefields’

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.

China’s Xi a little sobered by Ukraine war, CIA chief says

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.”

An explosion erupts from a block of flats in Mariupol, Ukraine, in March last year after a Russian tank fired on it. Photo: AP

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.

But analysts have said that while China could become a mediator, it had no intention to take concrete action in that regard unless Moscow and Kyiv were ready for negotiations, and there was no sign of that happening.

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.

03:33

Xi, Biden discuss Taiwan and Xinjiang in first in-person meeting

Xi, Biden discuss Taiwan and Xinjiang in first in-person meeting

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.”

131