Destroyed
vehicles across a bridge in Irpin, Ukraine, March 31, 2022. The EU has
called on China not to aid Russia’s war against Ukraine or to subvert
Western sanctions on Moscow. (Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times)
But, China has also persisted in declaring its firm support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, including Ukraine. It has called on “all parties” to exercise restraint, including Russia, and said it “does not want to see” the current situation in Ukraine, to which it has also provided limited humanitarian assistance.
Beijing
finds itself astride two policy tracks that appear to be moving in
opposite directions: committed to affirming its carefully cultivated
ties with Russia but also committed to upholding, at least rhetorically,
the inviolability of territorial sovereignty. As Russia’s invasion
enters a new phase, and more evidence of tragedies of emerge, China’s
gambit may become increasingly uncomfortable. But its leaders clearly
judge that staying on both tracks offers it the best chance of
protecting Chinese interests and finding opportunity in this crisis.
Domestic Considerations
In
part, this is likely because China’s interests are multilayered.
China’s leaders view the war in Ukraine through the lens of domestic
politics. Given that Sino-Russian partnership is a core element in
China’s foreign policy and having reaffirmed in a February joint statement that
the two countries’ “friendship … has no limit,” criticizing Russian
policy could be tantamount to admitting that Chinese President Xi
Jinping’s embrace of Putin was a miscalculation. Beijing is particularly
wary of such criticism at the moment as Xi’s government faces a number
of domestic economic and political challenges, not least the country’s
painful struggle to maintain its zero-COVID policy.
Amid
domestic tension, China’s leaders see little benefit in calling past
foreign policies into question, but may see much value in using the war
in Ukraine to mobilize domestic support. In this context, the official
picture presented to the Chinese public of a Russia wronged by the West
and “forced” to take action to protect its security — a picture painted
in part by Russian disinformation recirculated in China’s state-owned media ecosystem—
has found a receptive Chinese public so far. According to available
data, the Chinese public’s views of the United States are highly
negative. Certainly, this is the message that Beijing wishes to convey
to the United States. Commenting on a poll reporting
that 90 percent of Chinese netizens believe the United States is a
“hegemon and a bully in the Ukraine issue,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign
Affairs spokesperson Zhao Lijian said that
the poll “reflects the voice for justice for the majority” against U.S.
“hegemony and bullying” and against U.S. efforts to “hold down China
and Russia simultaneously.” At the same time, references by Beijing to
the importance of sovereignty invoke a trope familiar to Chinese
audiences schooled in “enthusiasm to defend national territories.”
China’s provision of humanitarian aid to Ukraine also enables Chinese
leaders to convey to the Chinese public that it is acting in a way
consistent with the image of China’s benevolent leadership or authority — vaunted as an attribute of Chinese exceptionalism.
Foreign Policy Objectives
China’s
stance also reflects its strategic objectives abroad. China has an
interest in sustaining relations with both Ukraine and Russia. Prior to
the war, Ukraine had been China’s third-leading supplier of military equipment.
It was also a rapidly growing economic partner for China. Ukraine has
billions of dollars in lending commitments from China, appeared set to
help China diversify its agricultural imports and serves as an important transit hub to Europe for China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
But
upholding the Sino-Russian partnership is a far more important, and
immediate, strategic priority. China’s ties with post-Cold War Russia
have developed into multifaceted security cooperation as Beijing’s role as an importer of Russian energy and investor in Russia’s economy has rapidly expanded. Chinese lending to Russia since 2000 has
been at least $125 billion, approximately 18 percent of China’s total
lending in the past two decades. Over the same period, the two countries
have converged around a shared view of the U.S. threat. This common
worldview has manifested in the two sides’ partnered efforts to reform
aspects of international governance and to coordinate against perceived
efforts by “external forces” to destabilize their peripheries, as seen
in their coordinated efforts in Central Asia.
Beijing
may believe that its contradictory stance on Ukraine represents two
opportunities. The first is in Europe, where Beijing appears to be
positioning itself as the neutral champion of a diplomatic solution to
the crisis and an essential power not only to Russia but also to Ukraine
and the West. By suggesting that it is prepared to mediate — and that
it has been encouraging Moscow to engage in talks with Kyiv — Beijing
likely hopes to improve its strained relations with European countries
both concerned that China’s partnership with Russia emboldened Putin and
alienated by China’s unwillingness to condemn Russia’s invasion.
The
second opportunity lies to the south, particularly in India. Beijing’s
position has enabled it to engage in dialogue with New Delhi, which has
its own set of important relationships with Russia. Following violence
between the two countries along their disputed border, and with India
resisting U.S. pressure to condemn Russia, Chinese leaders hope that the
war in Ukraine will provide an opportunity to reframe Sino-Indian
relations away from confrontation and toward a form of cooperative
solidarity against Western hegemony. Indeed, this crisis has raised
questions about the resilience of India’s partnership with the United
States and its QUAD allies. Beyond India, the crisis has triggered a
flurry of Chinese diplomatic engagement in the Global South, much of
which looks on the war in Ukraine through the lens of its potential economic fallout.
To these states, China has emphasized the impact of sanctions and the
devastating disruption to world grain supplies, the blame for which it
has sought to place solely at the feet of the United States and NATO.
Countering American Hegemony
Underlying
China’s contradictory stance, moreover, is a belief that the United
States engineered the conflict to preserve American hegemony. Seen in
this light, China’s simultaneous hard commitment to partnership with
Russia and soft criticism of the violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty
makes sense. If the Ukraine conflict is the result of U.S.-NATO pressure on Russia,
and the United States and its allies are seeking to extend NATO’s reach
into the Indo-Pacific to further strengthen their capacity to contain
and weaken China — a common view among Chinese elites —
then China has little choice but to stay wedded to Russia. But it must
also avoid becoming involved in the conflict. Beijing’s quasi-alliance
with Moscow not only simplifies China’s broader strategic calculus by
giving it new modalities for resources and a stable 2,600-mile northern
border, but also provides it with a partner whose support it will need,
to paraphrase one Chinese commentator, as it “wrestles with the United States” over Taiwan.
This
suggests that the primary driver of China’s policies toward the war in
Ukraine is opposition to the United States. By treating Ukraine as
another manifestation of U.S. aggression, China can characterize both
the international and domestic challenges it faces from the crisis as
rooted in U.S. actions. Although Xi’s warm relationship with Putin seems
increasingly inexecrable to international observers — even as
information about Russian atrocities seeps into the Chinese public’s
consciousness — China’s ties to Russia will almost certainly remain seen
as essential sources of China’s own security and sovereignty in
Beijing. China will also be able to blame U.S.-led sanctions for
narrowing international opportunities available to Chinese businesses
and future supply chain issues, even if those are more directly related
to the pandemic. China will continue to engage in diplomacy with
countries in the developing world who are suspicious of U.S. and
European power and welcome Beijing’s anti-Western narrative. China’s
current stance also puts it in a position to benefit economically in
some ways, including by securing additional energy supplies from Russia
and by helping China develop alternatives to the dollar that accelerate
its efforts to sanction-proof itself.
However,
Beijing’s gambit also carries heavy potential costs. Its decision not
to condemn Russia is seen in many capitals, not least Washington and
Taipei, as a sign that Beijing condones Moscow’s irredentist and
security claims in Ukraine as a parallel to its own interests in Taiwan
and the rest of its periphery. Among U.S. partners in Asia, this will
tend to buttress support for the United States, including on Taiwan
itself. Certainly, the United States is now weighing much stronger
military commitments to deter attacks on Taiwan, with influential voices arguing that United States should abandon the policy of strategic ambiguity.
In
addition, there have been signs of diplomatic damage to China close to
home. Some states near China have expressed their discomfort with its
ambiguous stance, and China’s refusal to condemn Russian aggression
distinguishes it from many of its neighbors. Notably, nearly all
countries in ASEAN supported a U.N. General Assembly resolution
condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from which China abstained,
including several countries that have territorial disputes with China.
These countries recognize that China’s contradictory stance raises
critical questions about the character and credibility of its
declaratory commitment to state sovereignty. For example, it may suggest
that China sees sovereignty less as a universal principle that is the
responsibility of the international community to uphold and defend than
as a right to be defended by individual states. This prospect is deeply
troubling for countries in China’s near abroad when seen against the
backdrop of China’s statements on the South China Sea that suggested might sometimes makes right.
China’s
contradictory stance is thus driven by the confluence of domestic
politics, longstanding policies and strategic calculations. China
evidently believes that the uncomfortable straddle between a commitment
to Russia, on the one hand, and a commitment to sovereignty, on the
other, is best solved by going on the rhetorical attack against the
United States.
An Opportunity for Improved U.S.-China Relations?
But
it is also worth asking whether China’s gambit might also provide an
opportunity for improved U.S.-China relations. Even as China’s
propagandists intensify anti-U.S. invective,
some members of China’s policy elite deplore China’s current course
that risks shackling China to a weak and isolated Russia with high economic opportunity costs.
Another expert in a policy research center in China’s State Council
goes so far as to argue that ending China’s support for Russia will not
only garner it international praise but also create an opportunity for
China to improve its relations with the United States and the West.
Beijing has also signaled that improving ties with the United States would
be the prerequisite for it to play a more significant role in mediation
in the conflict. Such a scenario is not out of the realm of
possibility: The United States can perhaps build on China’s restraint in
contributing materiel to the Russian war effort, along with Beijing’s
care not to violate sanctions against Russia, and pursue avenues to
jointly invest in rebuilding Ukraine. Moreover, Russia’s invasion has
demonstrated that nothing in war is ever assured, and over the coming
months will give the world a taste of the wrenching, almost unthinkable
economic and political dislocation that would inevitably follow from a
U.S.-China war. The war and its aftershocks could thus motivate leaders
to reconsider the risks of confrontation, pushing both states to search
out opportunities to reduce tensions. If “things that oppose each other
also complement each other,” then perhaps within the U.S. and Chinese
stances on the Ukraine conflict there may be room for common ground.