AAt the start of the Cold War in the 1950s, Mao’s China obeyed the Soviet big brother. In the field of “red”, it was under the tutelage of the USSR. Stalin had the upper hand. Today, the situation is reversed. After a year of this war that it launched against Ukraine, Russia finds itself in dependence on China. Within the relationship“boundless friendship” that Moscow and Beijing claim to have established, Xi Jinping is the dominant element – more and more each day.
The aggression perpetrated by Moscow against kyiv puts Beijing in a complex situation. Barely three weeks after having sealed, in Beijing, on February 4, this pact of” friendship “ between their two countries, Vladimir Putin commits his “special operation”. Objective: to take control of a Ukraine that yields to a Western tropism too pronounced for the taste of the man from the Kremlin.
Surprised, misinformed or not at all, China is doing minimal service. It supports Russia politically and refrains from condemning it in a vote at the United Nations. She declares herself opposed to American and European sanctions. It’s not just a matter of” friendship “ between states. Putin and Xi seem to have a very good personal relationship. More importantly, the two presidents are united in the same strategic ambition: to put an end to the – alleged – preponderance of the United States, or Westerners in general, over the international system.
China, a friend who knows how to count
But China is pissed off. She wants to be one of the most fastidious guardians of the principle of the inviolability of borders. Beijing gets away with it by declaring that the Russian offensive is the culmination of intolerable provocations “western” – a copy-paste of the Muscovite speech. Chinese and Russians will soon maneuver together in the Pacific. For a year, Xi, who has spoken to Putin several times, has hinted that he does not like this war. However, he never made contact with Volodymyr Zelensky, any more than China attempted the slightest mediation.
Within the Sino-Russian couple, the economy and demography establish Chinese superiority. The two countries share 4,200 kilometers of border. With some 18,000 billion dollars (more than 16,600 billion euros), China (1.4 billion inhabitants) aligns a gross domestic product ten times higher than that of Russia (144 million inhabitants). The post-February 24, 2022 sanctions and the boycott of Russian hydrocarbons decided by the European Union exacerbate Russia’s dependence on China – a situation that the Russian political scientist Alexander Gabuev, of the Carnegie Foundation, details in an article of the magazine Foreign Affairs (August 2022) titled « China’s new vassal ».
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