How China's rising influence has complicated the world's response to Ukraine
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The U.S. and European powers have condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and moved in unison to oppose the Kremlin, but many other nations are treading carefully as they assess a new global balance of power in which China holds increasing sway.
China, the world’s largest exporter of goods, aligned itself with Russia before the Feb. 24 invasion and remains a close partner despite its discomfort with the Kremlin’s brutal campaign in Ukraine.
Beijing has neither publicly endorsed nor condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion, but it has blamed NATO expansion into Eastern Europe for provoking Russia, and has helped spread Russian disinformation.
China has not taken part in placing sanctions on Russian industries and oligarchs, and it has sided with Russia at the United Nations Security Council. And Chinese President Xi Jinping is unlikely, experts say, to seize what some see as an opportunity for his ascendant country: to play peacemaker in the conflict.
“For decades, Western leaders pushed China to be a strategic partner or stakeholder in the global international order. Many have imagined that sooner or later China would rise to the occasion,” wrote Ian Johnson, author of multiple books on China and a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations.
But Johnson said China is “obsessed with a narrow set of issues” and that Xi’s ambitions for China are “limited and inward-focused.”
China’s supportive stance toward Russia has frozen many countries in that part of the world that may be opposed to Russia’s invasion but feel unable to say so publicly.
“In Asia, places like Vietnam and Singapore, people would say that obviously the United States’ vision of things is better for the world, but don’t make us choose. We’re in China’s backyard and have economic relations with them,” said Michael Allen, a national security expert at the Atlantic Council who worked in the Bush administration.
The foundation of China’s relationship with Russia, Allen told Yahoo News, is that both countries “are against the world order that the West, led by the United States, has set up since World War II.”
“There are a lot of fence-sitters in Asia, and Europe, who would prefer not to choose between the U.S. and China,” Allen said.
India is a prime example. At the United Nations, India has abstained from votes condemning Russia but has followed up those votes with statements critical of Putin’s invasion.
India’s sympathy toward Russia is not related to China. It’s because India relies on Russia for most of its weapons purchases and because of “a strong and understandable anti-Western sentiment that is largely the consequence of British colonial rule,” according to Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, director of the Center for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been much criticized by Western leaders and organizations in recent years due to what critics describe as his authoritarian bent.
But Russia’s growing closeness with China is making the government in New Delhi uncomfortable, because India is concerned about the impact of China’s growing clout. These neighboring Asian powers, which share a disputed border, have had a contentious relationship for decades. China is also a major ally of Pakistan, India’s historic rival.
“The improved relationship between Moscow and Beijing over the past decade is a concern for New Delhi,” Rajagopalan wrote in the Atlantic. “Since 2014, Russia’s sale of advanced weapon platforms to China, such as its Su-35 fighter jets, has had a direct impact on the military balance between India and China.”
However, India has begun to build stronger economic ties with the U.S., Australia, Japan and France, and Rajagopalan predicted that “New Delhi’s Russia policy will change, gradually, but not because of American or Western pressure.”
“Instead, it will change as a result of the growing strategic dissonance between [India and Russia], as Russia finds itself more and more beholden to China, and uncomfortable questions are raised about India’s enormous dependence on Russian arms and how vulnerable it is to Russian behavior,” she wrote.
A number of Middle Eastern nations have also looked to avoid taking sides in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, including Israel, the primary U.S. ally in the region.
“You’d think that the Middle East’s only democracy and America’s closest ally would have jumped on joint sanctions, criticizing Putin and providing military assistance,” Aaron David Miller, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Yahoo News.
But Israel has not provided weapons and has not even joined the sanctions regime. At the United Nations, Israel declined to co-sponsor a resolution in the Security Council calling on Russia to halt its invasion. Israel did vote later for a resolution in the U.N.’s General Assembly condemning Putin’s attack.
New Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a conservative who leads an ideologically broad coalition government, has conspicuously failed to condemn Putin’s incursion and destruction of Ukraine, even as Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid has.
Miller called these moves “jarring” but acknowledged there are obvious reasons for them. Israel has developed a cooperative relationship with Russia in Syria, where the Kremlin has given Israel the green light to take military action against elements aligned with Hezbollah and Iran.
Israel also believes that America’s “pivot to Asia” and renewed focus on countering Chinese influence has distracted it from protecting Israel’s interests in the Middle East. And Tel Aviv has signaled in recent years that it is happy to have a close economic relationship with Beijing despite Israel’s alliance with the U.S.
“Israelis have gotten the sense that American priorities are shifting and the Middle East is not as central to U.S. foreign policy as it was,” Miller said. “The Israelis know that they have to make space for other actors who could impinge on their interests.”
And Bennett is seeking to play a mediating role in the Ukraine conflict, which further inhibits Israel from taking actions that would anger either Russia, the U.S. or Europe. In a recent speech to the Israeli Parliament, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized Israel’s reluctance to offer more support to Ukraine.
“Everybody knows that your missile defense systems are the best … and that you can definitely help our people, save the lives of Ukrainians, of Ukrainian Jews,” Zelensky said.
Meanwhile in Washington, senators grumble about Bennett’s approach, noting that Israel receives the most U.S. foreign aid in the world.
“They ought to be stepping up like the rest of the world. I don’t understand it,” Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said last week, according to CNN. “I understand it’s because they feel they have some red light, green light from Russia about attacks on Iranian assets in the Middle East ... but that’s — it’s very disappointing, especially considering the massive amount of military aid we’ve provided to them.”
Even in Europe, which with few exceptions has rallied to the Ukrainian cause and is wary of Russian moves westward, there is a need for a delicate balance with regard to China.
China’s alliance with Russia hasn’t stopped EU nations from acting decisively to punish Russia with sanctions. Nor has the fact that Russia is the biggest energy supplier to much of Europe, providing 40% of its natural gas, 27% of its oil and 46% of its coal.
Major European powers like Germany have also been galvanized to increase their defense spending in the wake of the invasion.
But Europe and China still have major economic ties, as do the U.S. and China. In fact, Europe and the EU make up a far bigger share of China’s trade volume than Russia. The EU struck a major investment deal with China at the end of 2020, but then froze that deal in 2021 due to China’s severe treatment of its Uyghur minority, which has included numerous human rights violations and has been called a genocide by the U.S.
This Friday, the EU and China are set to discuss the status of that agreement, and also the war in Ukraine.
President Biden last week urged European leaders to deliver “clear messaging” to China regarding the costs of supporting Russia’s invasion, Reuters reported.
“China understands its economic future is more closely tied to the West than it is to Russia,” Biden told reporters after that meeting.
Allen agreed. China “wants to be able to keep good relations in Europe. They need economic allies. They need influence,” he said.
There are signs that China is doing things to avoid a rupture in its economic relationship with the West. Beijing has taken a few less noticeable steps that are hurting Russia, such as withholding key airplane parts, allowing the Russian ruble to drop in value and freezing infrastructure investment in Russia.
Johnson, the China expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that “China does not have many allies in the world.”
“Unlike Russia, they don’t want to overturn the world order, because they got rich from it. They want to realign it. But they’re not anarchic like Russia is,” he said.
