May 6, 2024
The Wall Street Journal
‘What lessons is China learning from Russia’s war on Ukraine?” is a question that preoccupies many senior policymakers in Washington and other Western capitals. The hope is that Russia’s experience in Ukraine will deter Beijing from invading Taiwan. But Beijing may be drawing different conclusions in the third year of this grueling war than it did in the first. And the lessons China’s leaders are learning may be the opposite of those the White House wants them to learn.
Two years ago, Russia suffered a humiliating defeat in the battle for Kyiv. Vladimir Putin’s generals had promised their boss a swift operation. It turned out to be a drawn-out and bloody fight—largely due to many years of corruption and complacency among Russia’s top brass. Xi Jinping took swift action to identify the weak and rotten spots in China’s military machine. In September 2023, China’s newly appointed defense minister, Li Shangfu, disappeared as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) launched a corruption investigation of the procurement system he’d led. Beijing’s expansion of its military-industrial complex suggests Chinese leaders are also heeding other lessons of the Ukraine war, including the need to prepare for a lengthy campaign that will require a colossal stockpile of munitions, missiles and drones and the ability to produce them at scale.
Drones have revolutionized the battlefield in Ukraine. For now, the Russian and Ukrainian militaries are the only armies in the world learning how to operate thousands of surveillance and attack drones every day in real combat conditions. Through joint training operations with Russia, the PLA hopes to integrate those lessons into its own combat doctrine.
In early 2022, the West expected far-reaching sanctions against the Kremlin to spark protests among the Russian elite and public. But Moscow’s leverage over global energy markets, combined with limited pre-war financial decoupling from the West and industrial import substitution, helped Russia to pass the stress test. The economy is growing, fueled by orders for military supplies and lavish payments to soldiers and their families. Mr. Putin’s war chest is full. He is well-positioned to pay for at least another two years of war.
The Chinese have spent decades trying to shockproof their economy. With Mr. Xi at the helm, Beijing has put security front and center of its economic policy. Recent moves include giving trade partners incentives to settle transactions in yuan and expanding land-based infrastructure along the border with Russia. The latter would allow Moscow to supply Beijing with hydrocarbons and food in the event of a U.S.-led naval blockade. And China is much more integrated than Russia into the global economy. This makes Beijing more vulnerable than Moscow to potential Western restrictions, but also more capable of retaliation.
Chinese leaders have used Russia’s experience in Ukraine to refine their strategy for managing the home front. An all-out assault on Ukraine was unimaginable to most Russians before the invasion. Western observers presumed that Russia’s elite prized access to London, Paris and New York above anything else. Yet in the third year of hostilities, the Kremlin enjoys solid domestic support for its attempt to destroy Ukraine. Chinese leaders have cultivated the idea of Taiwan as an indispensable part of the homeland for decades. Beijing has every reason to believe that a war framed as a defensive effort to prevent the split of the motherland will be met with at least similar support. And the tools available to Beijing for suppressing dissenting views far exceed those available to the Kremlin.
Finally, China has been scrutinizing the West’s evolving commitment to Ukraine. Two years ago, a U.S.-led team of European and Asian democracies surprised the world—and themselves—with a swift reaction to Mr. Putin’s aggression. In year three, the fracturing of Western support is plain to see. It took Congress six months to approve the latest U.S. military support package for Ukraine amid political divisions, and the possibility of agreement on new rounds of far-reaching sanctions seems remote. The West’s ability to up the stakes in the confrontation with a rogue player doesn’t look as solid as it did in 2022—and Beijing is taking note.
The Chinese system sets a high value on history’s lessons. More than three decades after the Soviet Union crumbled, its collapse is still being studied in Beijing. For Mr. Xi, the event was a formative experience, just as it was for Mr. Putin. Beijing is studying Russia’s moves again—this time, in Ukraine.
Mr. Gabuev is the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre in Berlin.