China presented a peace plan for Ukraine last week that has only satisfied Russia. This weekend he vetoed a joint G-20 condemnation of the invasion and in the coming days he will receive the Prime Minister of Belarus, Moscow's main ally. President Xi Jinping's rhetoric of neutrality contrasts with these facts. China reinforces its support for Russia and aggravates the confrontation with the United States. This is bad news for Ukraine and Europe.
China sustains the Russian economy. He buys hydrocarbons and sells everything, including dual-use civil and military goods, such as microchips, car components, drones and various electronic products.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says China is also considering supplying the Russian military with offensive weapons. The Chinese government denies it. In any case, Washington is preparing new sanctions against countries that trade with Russia, and China will be on the list, as will several Central Asian republics.
The sanctions package will accentuate in Beijing the conviction that the United States wants to deny it its legitimate strategic aspiration.
A few weeks ago, during the State of the Union address, President Joe Biden assured that with China he only wants to compete. However, he later insisted on defending Taiwan and bolstered the US military presence in the Philippines to show that his commitment to former Formosa is as solid as it is to Ukraine.
Far away is the meeting that Biden and Xi held last November in Bali. Relations are going from bad to worse, and this deterioration is fueling the Ukrainian tragedy.
Xi is commander-in-chief of the Chinese army, which is the armed wing of the Communist Party. These two institutions are the basis of his power. His leadership is unquestionable. No one disputes the hard line in his policy toward the United States.
Incidents happen. The spy balloon that toured the United States until an F-22 shot it down on the 4th is the latest in a long list. Two jets nearly collided last December over the South China Sea, and there are no prevention mechanisms to prevent these episodes from leading to a larger confrontation.
The Biden Administration has tried to establish them, but Xi is not interested in them. He believes that they benefit the United States more because it is still the higher power. He prefers to have his hands free, even if the danger increases.
In addition to strengthening itself in the Philippines, the Pentagon has strengthened military ties with Australia, Japan, and India.
India supports the United States to contain China, but then buys weapons and energy from Russia. Trade between India and Russia has increased fivefold in the last year. It is an example of the triangulations that war causes.
China, for example, is calculating how far it can push its support for Russia without further compromising its relationship with the European Union. It needs the largest single market in the world to relaunch its economy and, as Alicja Bachulska of the European Center for Foreign Relations puts it, “it wants to distance the EU from the US to avoid a common transatlantic front against it”.
The European Union can influence the struggle between China and the United States, according to Lizza Bomassi, deputy director of Carnegie Europe, admits, although “it is very difficult (...). It requires a lot of pragmatism in a quid pro quo game."
By strengthening its ties with Russia, China becomes a more formidable rival to the US. The war also diverts attention and resources that the US would rather have in the Pacific to Europe, and this is good for Xi's interests. .
Putin is a convenient ally for China. Hence, Xi does not pressure him to withdraw the troops from Ukraine, a condition that Kyiv, Washington and Brussels consider essential to negotiate.
Peace does not come from China and, for the moment, from nowhere else. Ukraine is increasingly looking like a war by proxy, the scene of the struggle of the great powers for hegemony. More than 20 million people died in this type of conflict during the cold war.
