What is China doing in Putin's war?

DISCLAIMER: This post contains content that may be objectionable. It represents the personal observations of the author and is mainly purposed for competitive debate education. It should not be taken as professional advice.

Is China and Russia’s relationship as strong as they say?

It was recently revealed that China had asked Russia to delay the Ukraine War until after the Olympics. Less than a month before the invasion, Xi Jin Ping signed a joint statement with Putin, declaring that its relationship with Russia has “no limits.” However, as the war and killings unfold and international scrutiny rises rapidly, and news spreads that Russia is practically begging for Chinese aid, their friendship is looking nowhere near as grand or powerful as they tried to portray.

What does the West think about China’s stance?

Everyone knows China is on Russia’s side. No one was surprised when it abstained from condemning Russia in the UN General Vote. No one believes in its claims to be “neutral,” not when it is still conducting trade with Russia and allowing it to complete transactions on CIPS (China’s version of SWIFT). No one has sanctioned them yet, but there is a lot of suspicion towards China, and they have repeatedly warned them against helping Russia. Many are agitated that China claims to be a peace-loving giant while it doesn’t condemn Putin for his countless war crimes and instead supports them by continuing to purchase Russian goods.

What are Xi Jin Ping’s true interests?

If Russia expects China to bail it out — especially militarily (China hasn’t fought a war since 1979) — it will probably be very disappointed. At the end of the day, China is an exceptionally self-interested & self-absorbed country. It will always look out for its interests first; naturally, that doesn’t mean getting Chinese banks and companies sanctioned.

China grew rich in the international order that Putin seeks to destroy. Ultimately it needs to compete with the world’s leading countries, and to do that, it needs an open world system with a free flow of capital and ideas and avoid sanctions at all costs.

Therefore, China’s interests are pretty simple: maintaining an equilibrium between its relationship with Russia without sacrificing economic and diplomatic links with the international community built over the past 50 years.

What dilemma has Xi Jin Ping run into?

Xi Jin Ping is in a tricky position. He wants China to be seen as a peace-loving country. The tricky part is that it would have to frame China’s position on the war in Ukraine as an arms-length observer hoping for peace talks, de-escalation, and a diplomatic settlement. Meanwhile, funnelling supplies to the side which started the conflict would kill the credibility of China’s posture.

He is slowly learning the hard way that China is now too big and too globally important to remain effectively neutral in geopolitical conflicts. On the one hand, Western countries are berating him with the threat of sanctions and “consequences” for helping Russia. On the other, his dear communist friend and “most important strategic partner”, Russia, is knocking on the door, requesting military and economic aid from its only ally with deep pockets.

“without sacrificing economic and diplomatic links with the international community”

China doesn’t want to be further implicated in Putin’s ineptitude in the war or to be strong-armed by the Americans into turning away from Russia just a few weeks after the two leaders declared a partnership ‘without limits’.

Russia’s aggression is evoking near-universal revulsion throughout the world. It’s rippling through developing countries in Africa and Latin America, threatening to undermine Beijing’s soft power aspirations underwritten by billions of dollars for Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure investment program. Publicly supporting the war would be against his interests. But not helping the country they claimed was their “most important strategic ally” would make them look as if they were vulnerable to the West.

Russia’s aggression is evoking near-universal revulsion throughout the world. It’s rippling through developing countries in Africa and Latin America, threatening to undermine Beijing’s soft power aspirations underwritten by billions of dollars for Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure investment program. Publicly supporting the war would be against his interests. But not helping the country they claimed was their “most important strategic ally” would make them look as if they were vulnerable to the West.

So what is China doing about it?

China’s response to the war was mind-numbingly predictable: the West is to blame, sanctions are counterproductive, and “all sides” should use restraint, as if this was just a quarrel between equals.

Despite pressure from the West, China has chosen to still side with Russia because:

Xi Jin Ping doesn’t want to be seen succumbing to Western pressure.
If China ditches Russia, it will only be a matter of time before America comes after China once more.
If China is cautious, it can avoid sanctions from the West.

So what has China done about its foreign policy regarding Russia?

It has chosen to stick to its existing Russian trade arrangements, hoping that America will tolerate them, mainly in the energy sector, where China received 32% of all Russian crude oil exports.
China also conducts trade and financial transactions through smaller banks that do not have a legal presence in the West, using roubles and yuan rather than the dollar.
Lastly, though, China is cautious, trying to limit its overall scale of trade volumes with Russia to avoid provoking the USA.

China wants to see Russia survive these sanctions and teach America and its allies that they are not a magic weapon but are anxious to limit collateral damage to Chinese interests.

However, China is also using this as an opportunity to learn from Russia’s mistakes. Should China go toe to toe with the USA, it wants to learn from the current Western foreign policy on Russia as to how it can shield its financial system. It will probably try to improve its financial systems and diversify and de-dollarize its reserves.

China has a lot of interests to juggle. Russia may hope for a bailout; China’s priority is using this as a platform to display its power and learn from a case study of failure, so long as trade with the EU remains intact.

How can you apply this in your future debates?

The above information will primarily be helpful for characterization of Chinese interests, and how Xi can navigate through the war. It can also be cross applied to other debates involving western sanctions and the Chinese and Russian economies.

For example, if the motion were “This House, as China, which aspires to create a new world order, would take an active stance against Russia on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine Conflict,” as government, you can argue that it is within Chinese interests to maintain its trade with the West, mainly EU and USA. You can characterize how the West are already warning it about its deadly sanctions for perpetuating war, and continuing to bolster the Russian economy would be seen as an act of supporting Russia’s war.

If you were on opposition, you could quickly characterize how taking a stance to Russia would make China look weak and vulnerable to Western in the new global order it is trying to make. Furthermore, China is not going to gain much utility from it, and the West will probably praise it for condemning the war, but would soon be back to competing with it.

Aside from everything you’ve learnt in this article, check out our first principles cheat-sheet which will make matter-heavy motions a little less pernicious.

Related motions

This House, as China, which aspires to create a new world order, would take an active stance against Russia on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine Conflict
This House believes that it is in China’s interest to aid Russia in the Ukraine war