The View from Beijing

In my prior post I offered a rendering of David Goldman’s analysis of the current situation in Ukraine, with special emphasis on the upcoming Rome talks between the American National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, and his Chinese counterparts.

Now, by way of a counterpoint, I report an op-ed published in the New York Times. The author, one Wang Huiyao, runs a think tank in Beijing. He does not officially work for the government, but he advises it. One understands that he is speaking for the government. One does not imagine that he is merely offering one man’s opinions.

Thus, it is fair to say that he reflects the unofficial Chinese position. Or else, if you prefer, he is presenting a position that the powers that be in Beijing find acceptable.

Where is the war today? According to Wang, it is escalating:

We are now in an escalatory spiral. Mounting pressure on Mr. Putin will likely make the situation more dangerous as Russia’s leader feels pushed to take increasingly extreme measures — such as what we’ve seen in the past few days with the Russian army’s siege tactics and attacks on civilian areas.

This means that Beijing has a growing interest in putting an end to the carnage. It has significant economic interests with both Russia and Ukraine:

But Beijing’s interests in more proactive involvement are growing by the day.

China has a significant economic interest in a quick resolution to the Russian-Ukrainian war. China enjoys strong ties with Russia and Ukraine and is both countries’ largest single trading partner, though each trades more with the E.U. bloc than with China. Russia and Ukraine are crucial components of the Belt and Road infrastructure program as well as conduits for China’s trade with Europe. China-Europe rail transports have experienced a hundredfold increase since the beginning of the 2010s, but the ongoing conflict threatens to disrupt these trade flows.

And, of course, China does not want to see trade interrupted. It is not in that nation’s interest. Besides, however close Beijing is with Russia, it also wants to maintain its good relationships with the West:

It is not in Beijing’s interests to rely solely on an anti-Western alliance with Moscow. Russia may possess a mighty military, but its economy is in long-term structural decline, with a G.D.P. not much larger than that of Spain. For all the talk of ties with Moscow, it is worth remembering that China’s economic interests with Russia are dwarfed by those it shares with the West. In 2021, trade between China and Russia may have jumped by 36 percent compared to the prior year, to $147 billion — but that’s still less than a tenth of the combined trade with the United States ($657 billion) and European Union ($828 billion).

China does not calculate the humanitarian cost of the crisis. It calculates the impact on the world economy. And it certainly does not look favorably on the reinvigoration of the Atlantic alliance:

There are also political reasons China wants this conflict to end in a way that is appealing to all involved. The longer the war lasts, the more it will reinvigorate the Western alliance around the idea of a values-based confrontation between East and West, bringing the United States and the European Union into even closer alignment while driving military budgets up around the globe. That is not good for China, which would prefer to maintain lucrative economic ties with the West and focus its resources on domestic development.

As noted in the prior post, China is sensitive to the non-stop propaganda war that we are waging against it. Wang does not say that China wants this to stop, even though obviously China wants it to stop, but he emphasizes the advantage that China might gain by mediating an end to the conflict in Ukraine:

At a time when China faces increasing global criticism for its human rights violations, mediating an end to this conflict could help improve the country’s standing with the West. Beijing has long striven to convince political and business elites in Europe and America that the rise of China does not present a threat. 

Support for Russian aggression — even perceived support — threatens to undermine that assertion. By contrast, playing a constructive role in ending the war could help cast China as a strategic and not just economic partner.

As for China’s relationship with Russia, it has, up to now, refrained from criticizing its ally. And yet, its patience clearly has limits:

China — like Russia — is wary of pro-democratic Western influence globally. So far, Chinese media has avoided criticism of Russia and even adopted Moscow’s narrative of the war. The two countries share grievances over perceived Western hostility and hypocrisy. Framing the invasion as anti-West and anti-NATO helps justify Mr. Putin’s action to a domestic audience.

The longer the war goes on, though, China may find itself in a position of diminishing returns in its close relationship with Russia. This makes the argument for Beijing to take on an active mediation role even more compelling.

What might a compromise solution look like? Wang floats this idea. Clearly, he understands that any solution would need to make Putin look like a winner. If we insist that he is going to lose, then he will simply up the violence until there is nothing left of Ukraine:

Beijing’s goal would be to find a solution that gives Mr. Putin sufficient security assurances that can be presented as a win to his domestic audience while protecting Ukraine’s core sovereignty and NATO’s open-door policy. Finding a landing zone for such an agreement is challenging but not impossible. 

Some creative diplomacy could solve this, such as a formula for NATO expansion that rules out Ukrainian membership in practice while preserving its sovereignty and NATO principles in theory.

As American and Chinese officials meet in Rome, you now have a sense of Chinese thinking on the matters in question.