Washington Is Missing a Chance to Turn China Against Russia

Robert A. Manning

Source Link

It may seem counterintuitive, but the political and economic costs to China of Russia’s war in Ukraine, a wobbly economy, anti-zero-COVID backlash, and Chinese President Xi Jinping rolling back an array of policies may be opening space for U.S.-China cooperation on Ukraine. The war in Ukraine’s galvanizing global support for Taiwan may also weigh on Beijing.

Since the start of the war, China has offered rhetorical support to Russia and demonized NATO’s actions—but avoided any actual commitments to aiding Moscow. The Sino-Russian entente is not, as it is often viewed in the West, a simple ideological sympathy between two revisionist autocracies. Rather, it’s a pragmatic, somewhat transactional union, one where the United States may be missing opportunities to pry the two apart—at least on particular issues.

First, on a visit to the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan last September, Xi pledged to “resolutely” support its sovereignty, a snub to Moscow. Then at a Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting that same month, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly and unprecedentedly acknowledged China’s “questions and concerns” over the war in Ukraine. In early October 2022, China abstained from both United Nations Security Council and General Assembly votes to condemn Russia’s annexation of the Donbas rather than voting against them. Beijing also joined India in calling for an end to the war.