Ukraine: which way will China jump?

Xi Jinping has no good options. But he is nimble enough to play both sides.

The war in Ukraine is one month old this week. Vladimir Putin’s blitzkrieg is not going well despite the horrendous loss of civilian life. We can expect a grim ratcheting up in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile Putin has turned to China, Russia’s old Communist rival turned ally, for help.

Born less than a year apart (1952 and 1953 respectively) Putin and Xi Jinping, China’s supreme leader, see eye to eye on many things. Foremost among these is a desire to hold on to power. They are both Tsars.

This is closely followed by opposition to US hegemony around the globe.

For both leaders the end of the Cold War and the collapse, of the Soviet union were seminal events that shaped their world view. For Putin the aim is to reverse history. For Xi the aim is to prevent history repeating itself.

So how will Xi respond?

The answer could prove crucial to how this war ends. As western sanctions choke the Russian economy, China could throw Putin a lifeline by soaking up oil, metals and grain Russia cannot sell elsewhere as well offering financial help.

At the height of the Trump presidency Harold Ford, a former Democrat Congressman, wisecracked that while China thinks in 100-year increments, America’s yardstick is 140 characters. This is a neat but flawed aphorism.

Beneath its monolithic appearance China is a good deal nimbler than the west gives it credit for as its advances in AI and new military technology suggests.

What is true is that, more than virtually any modern nation, China takes the long view: who to side with, who to hold at arms length, who to confront. As a totalitarian state, without the inconvenience of proper elections, it can afford to.

National interest and the supremacy of the Communist party are indistinguishable, two sides of the same coin. But there is a catch: in order to achieve this degree of control it must keep growing its economy, pulling its citizens out of poverty. It is the bargain between people and state. Hence its bind over Ukraine.

None of the choices on offer are palatable. Xi’s instincts may be to back Putin to the hilt. But as the world’s factory , China is vulnerable.

Xi’s instincts may be to back Putin to the hilt. But he walks a tightrope

On the one hand it can see that Putin’s gamble in Ukraine is destabilising to a world economy on which it is heavily dependant. China’s trade, and therefore jobs, is appreciably skewed towards the west. The US and Europe consume about 30% of China’s exports.

Even if the terms of trade are hugely in China’s favour (America and the EU import nearly three times as much as they export to China) putting this at risk by siding with Russia completely makes little economic sense, especially if Putin loses.

China is no less vulnerable to soaring prices than the west. It will want to avoid another recession just as it bounces back from the pandemic.

It will also wish to protect its strategic Belts and Roads initiatives, Xi’s signature project for projecting Chinese power. Like the US-led post-war Marshall Plan, Xi sees this linking of key economic hubs around the globe as a bridgehead to a China-dominated future.

China’s western frontiers and its central Asian neighbours - including Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighurs- hold vast reserves of oil and gas. These are lifelines that China must preserve not least to keep its economy growing.

On the other hand China has been building a strategic relationship with Putin (as it has with other anti-western states like Iran) as part of its plan to overtake the US as the world’s number one power.

Churchill called Russia a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

In a move which would have been unthinkable not long ago, China is exploring closer links with its vast neighbour India, with whom it fought a war across the Himalayas in 1962. Despite continuing tensions along the disputed border China is India’s second largest trading partner.

Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister, has refused to condemn Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. A politically non-aligned India equidistant between China, Russia and the west, poses a serious headache.

Xi, with an eye on Taiwan, will be carefully assessing the consequences of the Russian leader’s attempt to grab Ukraine. Putin’s dream of a Greater Russia incorporating its Slavic neighbours is a neat mirror image of Beijing’s One-China policy. These are the ties that bind.

In 1939 on the day when World War II was (also) a month old Winston Churchill famously referred to Russia as a “ riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”.

Russia had just invaded Poland from the east, 17 days after Hitler’s panzer divisions had rolled in from the west.

This was an odd non-condemnation of Stalin’s action by the fiercely anti-Bolshevik Churchill. But Churchill, unlike most war leaders, could see round corners. He understood that national interest, not short-term advantage, would dictate the course of the war. Russia’s pact with Nazi Germany would not last.

He was right. Barely 18 months later to Stalin’s astonishment, but not Churchills, Hitler fatefully invaded the Soviet Union.

China will support Putin, or like Churchill, not condemn him outright for as long as he does not become a liability. Xi has to walk a tightrope but he controls both ends.

We are likely to see some help going Moscow’s way but weighed carefully against its interests as a titan of the world economy. China first and China last.

None of which is good news for the US, the EU or Britain weakened by divisions, nationalism, Brexit and spectacular foreign policy failures such as Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 30 years.

The west is united in its determination to see Putin fail. The battle for Ukraine is framed as one between autocrats and democrats. There is some truth in this.

But its influence is severely diminished as the new world order rearranges itself around the new alliances which we are struggling to keep up with.