“Vladimir Putin is more alone today, but China is no closer to the United States” and for Beijing, which “distances itself” from the Russian president, the war in Ukraine is “also a question of realpolitik”. Francesco Sisci, a sinologist, summarizes this with Adnkronos in the aftermath of the talks in Rome between the US National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, and Yang Jiechi, number one in the Chinese Communist Party’s foreign policy. In itself, Yang’s arrival in Rome is “a clear signal from China” to the Russian president, who with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, only at the beginning of February, on the occasion of his visit to Beijing for the inauguration of the Winter Olympic Games , had signed a document of friendship “without limits”. On February 24, Putin’s announcement of the “special military operation” in Ukraine. Today is the twentieth day of the war.
And after 20 days a “clear signal”, according to Sisci, has arrived from Beijing to Moscow: the Chinese are “ready to distance themselves”, after having committed a “very serious error of assessment”, which has exposed “the Chinese weakness “compared to what was really happening, compared to the gravity of the situation. “They should have opposed Putin’s military adventure hand and foot – he observes – they should have distanced themselves from Putin at the time of the Olympics”.
‘Beijing wants strong American commitment to Taiwan’
And in the Chinese communiqué following the Roman talks “Russia is not mentioned”, notes the sinologist, who highlights an “other important sign” to the extent that “today Putin is objectively more alone” and “the conduct of the war is more difficult” . Also because the Chinese “in some way say that they will not give military aid to Russia”: according to Sisci, it is in this sense that the Chinese declarations in response to press reports according to which Russia would have asked for military aid and economic assistance to the Asian giant.
It is, the Sinologist remarks, “a positive sign” in the perspective of the always difficult relations between Beijing and Washington, but “substantially unsolved issues remain”, which are “indeed more complicated”, which go beyond the Ukrainian question and which “they are at the heart” of the relationship between the two powers. After the meeting in Rome between the ‘hawk’ Sullivan and the ‘tiger’ Yang, China “published two communications in parallel, one on Taiwan and one on Ukraine”, Sisci observes, insisting that essentially Beijing ” he wants a strong American commitment to Taiwan “, the island that the People’s Republic considers a” rebel province “to be” reunified “and which yesterday denounced the incursion of 13 Chinese jets. Beijing, he continues, “wants an American commitment not to interfere with Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong”. All “internal affairs” for the Asian giant that does not want criticism of human rights and democracy and disputes the US strategy for the Indo-Pacific.
And this is all the “profound difference with the USA”. Because for China the war in Ukraine is “also a question of realpolitik, therefore of political exchanges”, while for the US “the question is purely of principle and China must do the right thing without asking for anything in return”.
‘Today Russia is an impossible burden to unload and impossible to hold’
And Putin is “more alone” because “if China is willing to talk” it means that “it is willing to abandon Putin to his fate”. Thus there could be in the Asian giant – a few months before the expected Congress as Xi aspires to an unprecedented third term as leader – “the beginning of a paradigm shift of thought”.
A change also induced by a reality: the war in Ukraine has not only called into question, but is “destroying” the Chinese convictions – matured over the years and from which many political calculations were based – that “America was in decline “and that” Europe was willing to abandon it “. In fact, says Sisci, China finds itself with “an America that is very strong, with a Europe that follows America, with a Russia which is objectively very weak, if not a dead weight”. And the Chinese had “allied themselves with Russia”, which instead of being “a help” turns out to be an “obstacle, complicating all political calculations”.
This will also be, Sisci observes, one of the themes of the Congress to be held in the second half of the year, while today “all the weaknesses of China appear much more evident”. And from Yang’s mission, he stresses, an “observation” process, usually “very long”, will probably begin in China, with a careful internal debate starting with the restricted Politburo because even the Chinese “do not want instability in Russia”. northern border. And because there are two specters: “the possibility that Putin will be deposed and a pro-American government will arrive in Moscow” or, “worse, that Russia will shatter as the USSR shattered”. And everything seems to lead – over time – towards a “change of perspective in China”, towards the “beginning of a change of paradigm of thought”, taking into account the fact that now Putin’s Russia is a “burden that is impossible to unload “but at the same time” impossible to keep.
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