Chinese President Xi Jinping has a video call with President Biden in Beijing, March 18. Photo: Huang Jingwen/Zuma Press
Conventional wisdom has it that Beijing miscalculated by supporting Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine war. Xi Jinping’s partner faces both unexpectedly fierce resistance from the Ukrainian military and surprisingly strong Western punishment. Some in Washington expect China to attempt to extricate itself by brokering a peace deal. This is unlikely to happen. In many ways China has benefitted from the conflict, as Russia tests the international system with disappointing results for the West.
True, Beijing is taken aback by Russian military failures. The war will surely lead Mr. Xi to question his military’s ability to attack Taiwan. Yet Mr. Xi has long heralded a new era in international relations that overturns the U.S.-made world order. Mr. Putin signed on to this agenda in the Chinese-Russian Joint Statement of Feb. 4. From Beijing’s perspective, a new international politics is emerging.
Far from backing away from an anti-Western position, top Chinese diplomats are pressing their case. Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng have made statements since the invasion blaming the U.S. for not considering Russia’s security concerns and denouncing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s eastward expansion. In China’s telling, the world should have sympathy for Ukraine not because it was attacked by Russia, but because it is the victim of a reckless U.S. bid to maintain geopolitical dominance.
According to Beijing, the lesson for small countries is don’t be used as a pawn. The U.S. will manipulate them into fighting proxy wars against its adversaries.
China’s main target is Asia. In its narrative, the region can avoid Europe’s fate if it resists Washington’s efforts to contain China. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has taken aim at the recently released U.S. strategy for the Indo-Pacific, which envisions a political and economic order free of Chinese coercion. Mr. Le warned that this strategy will “provoke trouble, put together closed and exclusive small circles or groups, and get the region off course toward fragmentation and bloc-based division.”
The American strategy “is as dangerous as the NATO strategy of eastward expansion in Europe,” he added. “If allowed to go on unchecked, it would bring unimaginable consequences and ultimately push the Asia-Pacific over the edge of an abyss.” This is a clear warning that if Washington builds an alliance system in Asia akin to NATO, China reserves the option to resist forcefully. In this view, Russia’s case for attacking Ukraine sets a useful precedent.
Yet the world’s response to the Ukraine invasion should ease Beijing’s worry about the formation of anti-China blocs. Outside the West, America’s partners seem to prefer neutrality when confronted with authoritarian aggression. India, a crucial pillar of Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy, hasn’t condemned Russia. In Southeast Asia, a region the U.S. views as strategically critical, most have remained neutral. While these countries may feel differently if China starts a conflict, the U.S. cannot count on that.
America’s partners in the Middle East, strategically important to the U.S. because of their energy resources, are staying neutral as well. The Syrian war and Iran’s regional aggression have made these countries more dependent on China and Russia.
Even more gratifying for Beijing is that Japan’s support of Ukraine has caused heightened tensions with Russia. Moscow has called off negotiations to resolve territorial disputes and likely promised Beijing that it would resume joint exercises in the waters around Japan.
It turns out that the Sino-Russian Joint Statement was less an aspiration than a description of the current state of international relations. With so many countries staying on the sidelines in the wake of the Ukraine invasion, China has an opportunity to build greater support for its anti-American vision. Over the past decade, Russia has done much of this work by providing arms and extending its influence. China will also exploit distaste for promiscuous use of U.S. sanctions and American hectoring on human rights.
China hasn’t miscalculated. It was right about the geopolitical fundamentals. And since few countries joined the West in resisting Russian aggression against a sovereign nation, Beijing may conclude that fewer still would punish it for an attack on Taiwan, which most of the world doesn’t recognize as a country. Washington must urgently make a sustained diplomatic case to its partners that such an attack would devastate international security and prosperity.
China doesn’t need allies to support its aggressive plans. It merely needs nations to stay neutral, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has given China more confidence that most of the world will stay on the sidelines.
Mr. Blumenthal is director of Asian studies at the American Enterprise Institute and author of “The China Nightmare: The Grand Ambitions of a Decaying State.”