Xi Jinping has not yet spoken to Vladimir Putin. He has not phoned him to see how he is doing after the failed uprising of the mercenary Prigozhin. Three days have passed and the silence between Beijing and Moscow speaks for itself. Xi doesn’t know what to do with Putin. Their main strategic ally is bad company. A weakened Putin is more unpredictable and more dangerous. He needs to distance himself from him, but he doesn’t know how.
The “no limits” alliance they signed shortly before the invasion of Ukraine was, above all, a public relations exercise. The document accused NATO of being a threat to Russia, but said nothing about Ukraine. China defends the unity and sovereignty of Ukraine. It has not recognized the annexation of Crimea or the independence of Luhansk and Donetsk. Nor has he delivered to the Kremlin the weaponry it has asked for. There is no military alliance between China and Russia.
Energy, mining, grain and fertilizer oligarchs were looking for new opportunities.
China buys more Russian gas and oil than any other country. It does so at a discount, but even so, $95 billion has been spent since the start of the war. Bilateral trade grew by 34% in 2022. Putin needs the money to offset losses caused by sanctions.
Economic logic, however, is not enough if Putin falters. Xi does not want to be their savior or link to their fate that of a man who has committed a mistake of historic proportions in Ukraine.
Xi’s main goal is to make China the indispensable nation of the 21st century. A strong Russia helped to reduce the strategic pressure of the USA, but one as weakened as it is today is an unbearable burden.
Xi cannot mortgage his future to save Putin. It cannot risk that Chinese companies and financial institutions will be sanctioned, that Europe will form an anti-Chinese bloc with the US. Maintaining a pragmatic relationship with the EU and preserving access to international markets is more important than any economic or strategic ties with Putin, especially now that the Chinese economy needs to grow to its maximum after three years at a standstill due to the pandemic.
Unlike Putin, Xi derives his legitimacy from good economic management. He cannot risk unbalancing the international trading system, as he would certainly do if he swooped in to rescue Putin.
Xi needs Putin to save himself. Yesterday he issued a statement urging him to maintain stability. He only said of Prigojin’s mutiny that it was “an internal affair”.
Caution, coolness and balance prevail in Beijing, but it may not be enough. Everything is getting worse. Putin has been a disappointment and every day that passes is a bigger problem.
“Nobody comes out victorious in a war,” Xi told Biden last November in Bali. “We must avoid the confrontation between great powers (…), abandon the mentality of the cold war”, he added. This is how he tries to be a responsible actor on the international scene. Not like Putin.
In March, Xi and Putin signed a declaration in Moscow pledging not to install nuclear weapons in other countries. When Putin announced that he would do so in Belarus, Xi remained silent. Patience may be strategic, but mistrust never is, and with each passing day Xi trusts Putin less.
China has presented a peace plan for Ukraine that goes nowhere because it does not resolve the great contradiction at the heart of Chinese diplomacy: how to restore Ukraine’s territorial unity without describing the conflict as an invasion.
Despite its declared neutrality, China can hardly conclude a peace agreement in Ukraine that satisfies NATO, that is, that does not reward aggression with territories. Attempting it, moreover, would require a very risky involvement and Xi is not about to assume any failure in a conflict he did not cause.
But even so, he cannot stand idly by. Putin threatens to drown him. If, as it seems, he is unable to crush the Wagner insurgency, he will not win Ukraine or stabilize Russia.
Xi knows this and knows that the best way to save him and to save himself is to convince him to give up on Ukraine, agree to a security agreement with NATO and forget about victory in the field of battle
It’s asking too much, but any other alternative seems much worse.
