All the talk of China and Russia being partners without limits is nonsense. China and Russia are called a future Axis despite China’s refusal to support Russia with explicit military aid. China only sells useful dual-use products to Russia. America—which is accused of siding with Russia in the Winter War of 2022—sells weapons for Ukraine, trains Ukrainian troops, provides diplomatic and economic support, and shares intelligence and targeting data. America is an ally of Ukraine that wants Europeans to carry more of the burden in their own neighborhood. Russia can only dream of getting similar support from China. But China does not provide it. Let me explore that a bit and what it may mean for the Russia-China alignment.
China remains one of the major importers of Russian oil and gas which provides much-needed foreign income for the Russian treasury. China is also reportedly a major supplier of so-called dual-use goods, including semiconductors and machine tools that are critical to sustaining Russia’s defence industrial base.
The contrast between what North Korea is willing to do for Russia and what China does is revealing, notwithstanding the importance of what China provides.
Russia and China are really just frenemies with temporary benefits.
My view is that China is not supporting Russia to keep the West too busy to focus on China. The reality is that the longer the Winter War of 2022 rages, the more Europeans rearm in alarm. And the war has already alarmed America enough to improve its defense industrial base to sustain a long war. That is not good for China.
China may have actually believed—as I suspect Putin believed—a Russian quick win over Ukraine would be dangerous from China’s perspective by allowing Russia to pivot east after humiliating NATO and gaining a Ukraine buffer (and the ability to incorporate Ukraine’s potential into the Russian military and economy); but nothing China could really stop. But reality is now an opportunity for China.
Russia could conceivably go to war against a now stronger NATO either during the Winter War of 2022 (from frustration, much as Hitler declared war on America after Japan struck Pearl Harbor in anger for American active support of Britain in the Atlantic) or after the war is over (in perhaps an initially limited fashion).
Would China really respond to a resulting Russia-NATO war by joining Russia as a combatant against the broader West in Europe and Asia? Not if China has learned anything from World War II:
Does China learn from Germany’s mistake with its little buddy Italy in World War II?
Consider that Italy was an over-hyped military power that was a useful diplomatic ally for Germany before World War II. The Pact of Steel, it was called.
Italy entered the war after Germany invaded France, in an effort to pounce on the corpse. That didn’t work out. But at least it was harmless to Germany, which crushed France and the Low Countries, and drove Britain back to its islands.
Italy invaded Egypt but stalled out. The small British counteroffensive routed the Italians. Germany sent a small force to bolster the Italians in an arguably wise and fairly cheap effort. But as the Allies pushed the German-Italian forces back and American and British forces invaded Northwest Africa, the Germans belatedly pushed large forces into Tunisia just in time to be captured in an enclave cut off by Allied air power.
Italy invaded Greece to demonstrate Italy’s prowess and watched its armies get defeated and pushed back into Albania. Eventually that required Germany to conquer Yugoslavia and Greece, requiring large garrisons to hold against partisans and potential Allied invasion.
And Germany had to bolster Italy’s defense of the Italian peninsula against Allied invasion, eventually having to take over complete responsibility once Italy defected to the Allied side. One can argue the Allies tied down more of its own troops there than Germany had to deploy. But the Allies had sufficient troops for the Western front, too.
And you can hardly argue that Germany wouldn’t have been better off if Italy had simply remained neutral for the entire war, protecting Germany’s southern flank at little cost. Germany could have trained Italians and provided some military technology to keep Italy a target that looked too strong to take on to get at Germany.
That’s what China faces now, although with geographic distance to change the dynamics.
Russia is an asset during peacetime to distract the West with loud nuclear sabre rattling and fits of small aggression that prevent the West from fully dealing with China.
But during a great power war involving China, Russia is now exposed as a weak liability that can only suck in Chinese resources to sustain. Not just tilted trade terms that Russia is in no position to dispute—real aid that China needs for its war effort. And worse, that kind of aid risks dragging China into a nuclear war if the Russians in defeat get stupidly desperate. If China has any of their purported long-range planning abilities, China would openly and loudly cut loose their Russian vassal the moment a great power war looms.
So why with those looming strategic liabilities does China support Russia now just enough to avoid defeat yet not enough to win without even more grievous injuries to Russia’s military, economy, and reputation?
We have to consider that China believes the ongoing war weakens Russia and that the day after the war ends, China will have the maximum relative advantage to pounce on Russia to erase the largest insult from the Century of Humiliation—Russia’s 19th century conquests of Chinese Far East territory.
Putin needs to get out the war now for his own and Russia’s survival before China is ready to pounce. I’ve long wanted to flip Russia to the side of the West by the bond of having a common enemy. I see Trump’s kind words to Putin during negotiations (all while aiding Ukraine, I remind you) as a tactic to wean Russia from their self-destructive policy of appeasing China while pretending NATO is a threat.
Indeed, I can’t rule out that the long seemingly pointless negotiations to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine are really about America and Russia setting the terms of Russia’s defection from being China’s vassal to becoming America’s friend useful partner. Maybe actions to strip away Russia’s friends like Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba are carrots and sticks for Russia. What America can do for Russia against our common enemies is what we are doing to Russia’s friends right now. Big if true, as the expression goes.
Good analysis. Metternich has nothing on Dunn.