The dictators of Russia and China have met this week in Moscow for a ceremony that symbolizes the entente between their two authoritarian regimes. The summit took place when the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Putin for war crimes and without Xi Jinping condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine in open contradiction with his permanent proclamation, a basic pillar of his foreign policy, of respect to the territorial integrity of states. It is obvious that this principle does not apply to the actions of his colleague, the Muscovite autocrat, nor by analogy to any hypothetical actions by China in its self-proclaimed zone of influence, especially over that rogue province, called Taiwan.
In this context, the twelve points proposed by Beijing to negotiate an end to the Russo-Ukrainian war constitute a crude maneuver to assuage criticism of China over its role in the conflict and a propaganda platform to sell its Global Strategic Initiative and its Global Development (GSI and GDI in its English acronym).
Both projects have two basic objectives: first, to shield the autocratic systems against any external interference, and second, to create a climate of opinion aimed at making the United States and the West the main threats to world peace. This approach is too often ignored or overlooked, but it is essential to understand the strategic vision and tactics of the totalitarian regime installed in the former Celestial Empire. Xi's visit to Putin is just part of that.
The GSI and GDI have occupied a prominent place at the 20th congress of the Chinese Communist Party. Although their specific details are not yet known, both strategies are based on Beijing's attempt to shape an international order that is favorable to the global expansion of its interests, under the invocation of a supposed "community with a common destiny". In this context, China is promoting and leading regional initiatives, for example, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) or the Brics groups to bring together developing and emerging countries, including those grouped in the so-called Global South, to address the development and security challenges that Washington and Western democracies have created or ignored.
In a recent speech to the SCO, Xi described a world divided into two camps: one led by the United States, which has produced a global "peace deficit," and one led or, to use an Eastern euphemism, inspired by China, guarantor of stability.
In this framework, China's alliance with Russia is logical, inevitable and destined to persist. This was reflected in an editorial in the Global Times, a newspaper owned by the Chinese state, when pointing out that the peace plan proposed by Beijing did not imply a distancing from Putin and assigning responsibility for the start of the war to the United States and NATO; In other words, Russia is not to blame for the invasion, it is not the aggressor, but rather an innocent victim of the evil and voracious Western imperialism. From this perspective, Xi Jinping's claim to believe it is possible to continue professing neutrality, while in practice supporting his Moscow partner and, for the moment, without any cost, is extremely arrogant and constitutes an insult to intelligence. substantial. And there remains a huge question mark over China's hypothetical willingness to sell arms to Moscow.
Although the Chinese proposal to end hostilities claims to be open to all, its true recipients are developing and emerging countries, whose support is sought with two attractive claims: freeing them from the obligation to choose between the sides in fight and free them from the pressures of the US and its allies to join the sanctions against Russia. The argument is very simple. The war harms the economy of those states, the well-being of their population, and the rich and selfish West is indifferent to their suffering. In this way, it is about breaking Russian isolation while making progress in the configuration of a pole of world power around China, converted into a champion of those oppressed by the forces of capitalist and democratic imperialism.
These are the real reasons for the Chinese position in the Russian-Ukrainian crisis and it is vital to take them into account because they are part of the Great Game in which world politics is, and will continue to be, for decades to come. It is one more movement towards the attempt to articulate an international order around two blocs with features very similar to those of the Cold War. It is intended to review the global geopolitical map that emerged after the collapse of the USSR and end the hated Western dominance, which fills both the Russians and the Chinese with secular resentment. In synthetic terms, the only difference between then and now is the change in the leadership of the autocratic powers, but their imperial ambition, their aspiration to world hegemony, persists. This is reality and ignoring it would be very dangerous.
Given this panorama, the only real and acceptable peace is that derived from a withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine, from the preservation of the territorial integrity of that country and from its survival as an independent and democratic country capable of governing its destinies as it deems prompt. A solution of this nature is also highly relevant for dissuasive purposes, when the Chinese communist regime is proceeding with an accelerated militarization of the disputed areas of the South China Sea and making its ambitions on Taiwan more and more explicit, whose annexation would be consistent with the doctrine of the Pekingese regime, since it would not imply a violation of its sovereignty because it does not consider Old Formosa an independent State but rather a part of its territory; the same conception that Putin has of Ukraine.
Russia and China, Putin and Xi Jinping are the heads and tails of the same coin: tyrants resentful of the West and with imperial dreams. With them there is no room for appeasement, only coexistence.
