The best way to stop China from aiding Russia is for the U.S. to help Ukraine | Trudy Rubin

The Biden administration hoped it could focus on China and not worry about Russia. But the war in Ukraine has proved this was a fantasy as China considers sending military and economic aid to Russia.

The China factor is one more key reason why the White House must quit waffling about helping Kyiv and block attacks by Russian missiles and airplanes. Vladimir Putin cannot win his war on Ukraine if Western allies transfer the necessary weapons to Kyiv immediately. The U.S. must show Beijing it is backing a losing cause.

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Putin has asked for armed drones, armored vehicles, and surface-to-air missiles, along with military rations, according to news reports. This is a sign of how badly the invasion is proceeding for Russia. The Russian leader also seeks financial aid for an economy so devastated by Western sanctions that it may soon default on some of its debt.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan held a seven-hour meeting with his Chinese counterpart on Monday, reportedly laying out the U.S. case against the invasion and the consequences if Chinese companies broke Western sanctions against Russia.

China’s top foreign policy official Yang Jiechi responded that China was “not a party to the crisis” and warned of retaliation if the country were hit with Western sanctions (in retaliation for supposedly aiding Russia).

But the Chinese are attempting a very tricky balancing act, claiming neutrality while refusing to condemn the Russian invasion and blaming it on NATO. Beijing is also endorsing Russia’s war propaganda, including the gross lie that the United States is helping Ukraine make chemical and bioweapons to use against Russia.

Yet, there are also good reasons for Xi Jinping to be annoyed with Putin. The Russian leader, according to U.S. intelligence, informed Xi of his war plans when the two men met in Beijing on Feb. 4, at the beginning of the Winter Olympics. Given how he wholly miscalculated the strength of Ukrainian resistance, Putin probably told Xi the war would end quickly.

Xi can’t be happy at the prospect of being dragged into another sanctions battle at a time when the country’s economy is facing a severe slowdown, and when China’s draconian shutdowns of whole cities to staunch omicron are further disrupting global supply chains.

The answer is made clear in a 5,364-word joint statement that Xi and Putin issued after their February meeting, which laid out the two nations’ joint anti-Western position on global affairs. China backed Russia’s efforts to “oppose further enlargement of NATO” while also critiquing U.S. military alliances in the Indo-Pacific (which have been put in place to stop Chinese expansion in those regions).

The statement does not mention a formal “alliance” between China and Russia but states that there are “no limits” or “forbidden” areas of cooperation between the two. It also does not mention Ukraine but makes clear their determination to shape a new global order, in which the West is a lesser player and autocracies play a major — or the major — role.

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In the anti-Western alliance, Russia is clearly the junior partner, showing Putin’s weakness. Many Chinese leaders can recall the post-World War II era of great political and ideological tension between the two communist powers, including a 1969 border war. This tension, and the Chinese desire to escape from domination by their “big brother,” was a major reason for China’s opening to the United States in the early 1970s.

China’s rapid growth and Russian economic stagnation have led to Chinese dismissiveness toward Russia that I have heard regularly on visits for decades.

China is the giant “big brother” now.

On my first trip to China, in 1986, at a new private nightclub in the major city of Guangzhou, I asked the manager why all the waitresses were Caucasian and blonde. His reply: “They are Russians. We like to have them serve us.”

“It’s more than a little ironic — and not lost on any Chinese leaders of a certain generation, I’m sure — that Mr. Putin’s big plan for Making Russia Great Again seems now to rest on whether or not China feels like taking on Russia as its vassal state,” said Neysun Mahboubi, a research scholar at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Study of Contemporary China.

I believe China now looks at Russia as Russia looks at Belarus, a country whose dictator leader now desperately needs help from a powerful sponsor. With his collapsed economy, Western sanctions, and his disastrous war in Ukraine, Putin needs Xi far more than Xi needs Putin.

China mainly needs Russia as a gas and oil station. Indeed, in 20 years’ time, it would not be so surprising if chunks of energy-rich Siberia were controlled by Beijing. And Putin’s dependence on Xi for help with Ukraine practically guarantees that Russian energy supplies for China will come at a steep discount price.

The question for Xi is whether helping Putin on Ukraine is worth it. Putin’s desperation practically guarantees he will have to supply cheap energy to China, whether or not Xi embroils himself in the war in Ukraine.

If Western allies provide Ukraine with the planes and long-range missile defenses it needs to push back against Russia — and if they do so right now — they can help convince Xi he is backing a lost cause.