Beijing could emerge as a winner from the war
Beijing could emerge as a winner from the war
TUE, MAR 22
During the height of the Cold War in the 1970s China was seen as an ally of the Soviet Union and part of a global communist bloc united against the United States and the West.
But then US President Richard Nixon's national security advisor Henry Kissinger decided that by pursuing a shrewd diplomatic strategy, Washington was in a position to drive a wedge between Beijing and Moscow.
And indeed, that approach led eventually to President Nixon's historic 1972 trip to China, which was in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, where he shook hands with Mao Zedong, marking the beginning of the American opening to China.
The growing tensions between the Chinese and the Russians allowed the US to improve relations with both Beijing and Moscow, a process that led to the US détente with the Soviet Union, and eventually brought about the end of the Cold War.
It is useful to recall 50 years later that successful chapter in US diplomacy at a time when the American relationship with both the Russians and the Chinese is deteriorating to new lows.
American officials and pundits have criticised China for not joining Washington in a diplomatic and economic campaign against Russia aimed at punishing it for its aggression in Ukraine, and US President Joe Biden has warned Chinese President Xi Jinping of the "consequences" of providing military assistance to Russia during a virtual meeting on Friday.
But in a way, it is American diplomacy that has been responsible in part for the strengthening relationship between Beijing and Moscow, with President Biden and his diplomatic aides doing their best to alienate both the Chinese and the Russians.
At times it seemed as though the current White House occupant and his advisors have studied the China policy embraced by the Nixon-Kissinger team and decided that they would do just the exact opposite of what was done in 1972.
In fact, since President Biden entered office, US ties with both Beijing and Moscow have been in a downward mode. While former President Donald Trump was responsible for the heightened trade tensions between the two countries, his successor in office has done nothing to repair them.
If anything, President Biden has insisted again and again that China was becoming America's main global rival, reflecting what he depicted as the evolving struggle between a democratic-liberal West led by the US and a coalition of authoritarian regimes headed by China and, let us not forget, Russia. So if his predecessor in office coddled President Russian President Vladimir Putin, don't expect a flourishing bromance between President Biden and the Russian leader.
Indeed, if you study the media coverage of the Summit for Democracy, the virtual summit hosted by President Biden "to renew democracy at home and confront autocracies abroad" last December, you would notice that the event was dominated by calls for the US and its democratic allies to confront a surging China-Russia "axis" in the diplomatic, military and economic arenas, with a lot of emphasis on the threat that China would attack Taiwan - and Russia invade Ukraine.
That they are now witnessing the emergence of a China-Russia axis should not therefore have shocked US policymakers. That can be seen as a self-fulfilling prophecy on the part of the Americans. The only element of surprise for them is that before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they had been placing the major emphasis on the threat posed by China, warning against the possibility that it would invade Taiwan.
Washington therefore should not have been surprised that China has refused to join, and has even denounced, the international sanctions imposed on Russia. Following US behaviour, it had no incentives to toe the 'Western' line.
Yet the Americans should refrain from interpreting the Chinese response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a sign that the two leading authoritarian regimes are allying themselves against the Democratic West. After all, the response of India, the world's largest democracy, to the Russian invasion is not very different from the Chinese's.
Like India, China has not expressed support for President Putin's decision to invade Ukraine and has called for an end to the war. Xi's decision to denounce the international sanctions imposed on Russia reflected a cool-headed consideration of China's national geo-strategic and economic interests.
Recall that in addition to blasting Chinese policies in Hong Kong and its treatment of its Muslim minorities, which many top officials and lawmakers in Washington have compared to "genocide", the Biden administration has been mobilising support in the Indo-Pacific region for a strategy to contain Chinese, including by forming the so-called "Quad" which also included Japan, Australia and India, and the Aukus pact that would give Australian submarines nuclear propulsion technology.
So against this reality of US policy in Asia - that included an effort to create an Asian version of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) - why exactly should Chinese policymakers have come to the aid of the US and its NATO allies as they were trying to mobilise international support against Russian moves in Europe? In fact, before the invasion of Ukraine, Washington has been trying to win support from its European allies for a more aggressive strategy against China.
That the Americans, in the aftermath of the military fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan, may be sliding into a new costly diplomatic-military mission in Europe, could on one level serve long-term Chinese geo-strategic interests, by making it more difficult for the Americans to pursue their plans of pivoting their diplomatic and military focus from the Atlantic to the Pacific in order to contain China.
Moreover, Russia has traditionally been seen as a potential rival of China in Eurasia. That it is now engaged in a costly military adventure in Ukraine that would weaken it militarily and economically may come as good news for Chinese strategists.
Only last month, meeting in Beijing, the Chinese and Russian leaders had signed a "no limits" partnership and President Xi proclaimed that their Sino-Russia relationship is "stronger than an alliance".
But that does not necessarily mean that the Chinese need to take an active part in supporting the Russian invasion, when Russia is anyway becoming more diplomatically and economically dependent on China.
At the same, as an importer of oil and a big buyer of food around the world, China could clearly be impacted by war in Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions that the West has imposed on Russia.
At a time, when China's economy is recovering from the impact of Covid-19 and may be facing a new wave of the pandemic, the price increases on a wide range of energy and agriculture commodities that China imports could damage its economy.
In a way, the continuing growth of the Chinese economy depends very much on the continuing process of globalisation - as President Xi pointed out, the "sanctions will affect global finance, energy, transportation and stability of supply chains, and dampen the global economy that is already ravaged by the pandemic".
To put it in simple terms, China is one of the large economies most exposed to the fallout of the war, including rising food and energy prices and the potential for inflationary pressures, which would be another drag on an economy struggling with other problems, like slackening consumption.
And while China's economy is strong enough to withstand the impact of the international sanctions, Beijing recognises that continuing trade and investment ties with the Western economies has been central to its economic success and disrupting them if tensions with the US over Ukraine become protracted could prove to be devastating.
But the Chinese also know that the West wants to avoid a geo-economic war with both Russia and China, and notwithstanding the American rhetoric, the Biden administration recognises that any serious effort to isolate China economically was not practical and would prove to be self-defeating.
China, like the US, has therefore an interest in seeing the Ukraine war ending, but without the Russians or the Americans and its Ukrainian partner emerging from it as winners. More likely, a military stalemate that would force the Russians and the Ukrainians to reach a deal is what Beijing wants to see. It therefore has no interest in backing an American policy that encourages the Ukrainians to continue fighting, and is in a better position than Washington and Moscow to come out of this crisis as a winner.
The Ukraine war has demonstrated that a multipolar system is now emerging in which the US economic and military power is constrained and America certainly has no monopoly on deciding who is "on the right side of history". America's long-term interests would therefore be better served by working together with China and Russia, and not by pursuing a policy that encourages the two of them to band together against it.