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Opinion | Ukraine crisis: why China’s Xi Jinping will do the unthinkable and defuse the Russia threat
- Putin’s war against Ukraine has turned China’s triangulation gambit – joining with Russia to corner the United States – on its head
- Not only will continuing to support Russia result in sanctions that thwart China’s economic development goals, but it also risks Xi’s own place in history
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With war raging in Ukraine, China’s annual “Two Sessions” convey an image of a country in denial. As China’s National People’s Congress and its advisory body gather in Beijing this month, there has been little mention of a seismic disruption in the world order – an omission all the more glaring in view of China’s deep-rooted sense of its unique place in history. With its unabashed great power aspirations, modern China may well be at a decisive juncture.
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Two documents – the joint Sino-Russian cooperation agreement, signed on February 4, and the Work Report, delivered on March 5 by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to the National People’s Congress – encapsulate China’s disconnect. The statement on Sino-Russian cooperation spoke of a “friendship between the two States [that] has no limits”. The West was put on notice that it faced a powerful combination as a new adversary in the East.
Yet merely 29 days later, it was largely business as usual for Li, who presented the annual Chinese boilerplate prescription for development and prosperity. Yes, there was a widely noted tweak to the economic forecast – with a 2022 growth target of “around 5.5 per cent” that, while weak by Chinese standards, was actually slightly stronger than expected – and some hints of likely policy support from fiscal, monetary and regulatory authorities. But this work report was notable in saying as little as possible about a world in turmoil.
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China aims for modest 5.5% GDP growth in 2022, citing economic pressures
China aims for modest 5.5% GDP growth in 2022, citing economic pressures
China can’t have it both ways. There is no way it can stay the course, as Li suggests, while adhering to the partnership agreement with Russia. Many believed that Russia and China had come together in shaping a grand strategy for a new cold war.
I called it China’s triangulation gambit: joining with Russia to corner the United States, just as the Sino-American rapprochement 50 years ago successfully cornered the former Soviet Union. The US, the architect of that earlier triangulation, was now being triangulated.
Yet in just one month, Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine has turned this concept on its head. If China remains committed to its new partnership with Russia, it faces guilt by association. Just as Russia has been isolated by draconian Western sanctions that could devastate its economy for decades, the same fate awaits China if it deepens its new partnership.
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This outcome is completely at odds with China’s development goals just enunciated by Li. But it is a very real risk if China maintains unlimited support for Russia, including tempering the impact of Western sanctions, as a literal reading of the February 4 agreement implies.
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