China needs to pick a side, and it just might pick the Wes

Chee Meng Tan

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Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin pose for a group photo during the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 28, 2019. 

For the Kremlin, its “partner of no limits”, China, isn’t doing enough to aid Russia’s war against Ukraine. So, Russia has signed a peace treaty with North Korea, hoping to pressure China into backing Moscow’s war effort further.

Meanwhile, the West sees China as far too helpful to Russia. The sentiment in the West was best captured on July 10, 2024, during a summit in Washington DC.

Heads of state and governments of NATO countries jointly proclaimed that China is a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war against the Ukraine, and also called on China “to cease all material and political support to Russia’s war effort.”

To the West, China’s aid, though short of actual weapons supply, is more than enough to fuel Russia’s war machine. This in turn poses a security threat to Europe.

But NATO’s message and Russia’s implicit code to China seem to indicate one thing: Beijing’s fence-sitting days are numbered, and it needs to choose a side. Unfortunately for Russia, China may be forced to pick the West.

Signs that China is already pivoting to the West have started to appear. Speculation was rife in late 2023 that China’s panda diplomacy (where it gifts the lease of the bears to foreign zoos) was on the way out amid worsening ties with the West.

But in mid-2024, Beijing sent more pandas to Spain and Vienna, as well as the US tech center of California. President Xi Jinping also went on state visits to the US, Europe, Australia and New Zealand to mend ties with the West.