(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- A sobering realization is setting in as American policymakers begin to assess the new, harsher international environment. Officials in Washington are recognizing that ties between Russia and China, long discounted—or even dismissed—as a “marriage of convenience,” have the potential to reshape global politics.
The runup to Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine focused their minds on the problem. In early February, as American warnings about a possible Russian attack grew increasingly urgent, Putin visited his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, for the Winter Olympics in Beijing. During the visit the Chinese and Russian governments issued a more than 5,000-word joint statement that hailed a partnership with “no forbidden zones.”
The document, peppered with a favored Russian and Chinese talking points, appeared to be a call for the nations to establish spheres of influence in their respective regions, says a senior U.S. official. Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby said the document signaled China's “tacit support” for Russian threats to Ukraine.
In hopes that China might urge Putin to be cautious, U.S. officials decided to share with the Chinese government downgraded intelligence about Russia's troop buildup. In a series of meetings at the Chinese Embassy in Washington and phone calls with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, officials walked through Russia's plans in detail and warned about the implications for global security, according to two senior officials who asked not to be identified discussing internal deliberations.
During these meetings, China expressed skepticism that Putin would invade, the U.S. officials say. Worse, the Chinese shared a confidential diplomatic exchange with Russia, warning the government that China believed the U.S. was attempting to sow division between the two countries.
“By disclosing false information, the U.S. intends to blame-shift and smear China,” says Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington. “China supports and encourages all diplomatic efforts conducive to the peaceful settlement of the Ukraine crisis.”
President Joe Biden fumed at China's attitude, according to a person familiar with his thinking. One senior official says it was clear that successive U.S. administrations had underestimated the depth of ties between Putin and Xi, who share a strong sense of aggrievement about America's place in the world. A senior defense official says the events represented a clarifying moment about the nature of the Chinese regime.
The upshot is that U.S. government officials will need to begin thinking about joint Russo-Chinese responses on a whole host of global challenges. David Shullman, former deputy national intelligence officer for East Asia on the National Intelligence Council, says Russia and China's partnership would now affect America's ability to tackle issues including East Asian and European security, democratic resilience, and the defense of the global financial system. “The U.S. will face heightened challenges in all these domains in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with each of them made more difficult by a China-Russia relationship that will only deepen in the months ahead as Russia becomes further isolated internationally,” he says.
Recent events are the culmination of a long process of Russo-Chinese rapprochement. After a tense and sometimes violent relationship during much of the Cold War, Russia and China began to move closer through the 1990s, signing a treaty of “Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation” in 2001. Both bristled at America's dominance of the post-Cold War world and began calling for the “democratization” of global politics: code for a world less centered on U.S. leadership and alliances.
The countries' push for partnership sped as Putin faced isolation after his 2014 annexation of Crimea and gradually overcame misgivings about selling advanced weapons to China. Beijing sympathized with Moscow, having also been subjected to U.S. economic pressure. In October 2019, Putin announced that Moscow would help China develop an early-warning system to counter missile attacks. In February 2021, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang publicly called for a Sino-Russian relationship with no restricted areas of cooperation. In October the two nations held extensive joint naval exercises in the Sea of Japan.
Tensions remain in the partnership of the two countries. U.S. officials are convinced that many Chinese officials below Xi have deep misgivings about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, according to two senior administration officials. In public China has begun to urge Russia to be cautious. On a March 1 call with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, Wang said he was “extremely concerned” about harm to civilians.
China's hesitation may reflect that the country has much to lose in the crisis. It has spent decades attempting to convince European elites that they have little to fear from a rising China, a claim that tacit support for Russian actions threatens to undermine. What's more, China has traditionally made much of its support for state sovereignty in international affairs, in part to help blunt criticism of its policies at home. On this point, too, Putin's invasion of a sovereign state threatens to undercut China's stated principles. In addition to all this, Xi's priorities this year are primarily focused at home as he seeks to secure a third term as head of the Chinese Communist Party. He doesn't need crises abroad distracting him.
On the Russian side, there's the possibility that Putin will ultimately grow uncomfortable with a relationship in which he's clearly the junior partner. China accounted for 17.3% of global gross domestic product in 2020, whereas Russia accounted for only 1.7%, according to World Bank data. Such an imbalance could lead China to call in favors that make Russia uncomfortable—on sensitive issues such as Taiwan and the South China Sea. Russia has high expectations for the partnership, too: It will need help getting around sanctions in areas where Beijing has been reluctant to offer aid. “Russia will be increasingly dependent on China going forward, and that dependence will provide Beijing with leverage, which it could seek to use to secure Russian backing for its regional and global ambitions,” says Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund.
Neither side is formally obligated to do anything for the other, because they have stopped short of signing a formal mutual-defense treaty. Much will depend on Xi's assessments of how the war in Ukraine plays out. “It's possible he will conclude that aligning with Russia carried unexpected costs—that would be a welcome outcome,” Glaser says. “But if Xi Jinping believes that strengthening ties with Russia is the right choice, and doubles down on that decision, the U.S. and its allies will face bigger challenges going forward.”
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