(Paris) The Chinese president had arrived this week in Moscow in a posture of mediator between Russia and Ukraine. But Xi Jinping has instead signaled his strong support for Russian President Vladimir Putin in the face of Westerners who are trying to isolate him.
After his third re-election as head of China, Xi Jinping booked his first state visit for the head of the Kremlin. A highly symbolic trip that strengthened ties between the two leaders and undermined Beijing’s alleged neutrality in the conflict in Ukraine.
“Xi’s visit emboldened Putin,” summarizes Liana Fix, an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), an American think tank, pointing out that this visit took place a few days after the issuance by the International Criminal Court ( ICC) of an international arrest warrant for the Russian President.
This visit was “perceived by the non-Western world as a counterweight to the decision” of the ICC, continues Alexandre Baounov, expert from the Carnegie Foundation. It is “as if the Chinese leader had broken the curse on Putin”.
And proof that Xi wants to give a place of choice to the Russian president: he has invited him to visit him in Beijing.
“Implicit support”
For the CFR expert, from Moscow’s point of view, this visit signals “the implicit support – even if it is not proactive support from China -” to continue to fight in Ukraine.
Sam Greene, director at the Washington-based CEPA Think Tank, agrees.
“This is a gift for Putin – basically Beijing’s permission to continue to fight”, he reacted on his Twitter account, while not excluding “a surprise” if Xi Jinping and the Ukrainian President Zelensky came to talk. For now, the interview, requested by Kyiv, has not been confirmed.
China has never applied Western sanctions against Moscow. It did not hesitate to increase its imports of hydrocarbons from Russia and to increase its economic interests in the neighboring country.
And his recent peace proposals have aroused much skepticism on the Western side.
For Antoine Bondaz, specialist in Chinese foreign policy at the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS), “what is at stake today for China in the war in Ukraine is not the future of Ukraine. , she doesn’t care […] It is the Sino-American rivalry and the desire to discredit Western countries”.
The Chinese president’s trip “is anything but a distancing” from Moscow, he said.
For the time being, beyond the political signal from Beijing, which shares the same visceral hostility towards the United States with Moscow, the Sino-Russian partnership is working to the advantage of China more than Russia, experts believe.
No “equal to equal” partnership
“While Xi and Putin have many common interests, it seems increasingly clear that this is not a partnership of equals,” said Jon Alterman, an expert at the American think tank CSIS ( Center for Strategic and International Studies).
“Putin needs Xi much more than Xi needs Putin,” he adds, alluding to Russia’s increased dependence on its hydrocarbon exports to China, which have boomed since the start of the war and are expected to further accentuated with the Force de Sibérie 2 gas pipeline project.
Ultimately, “Putin emerges from this visit strengthened in the short term, but more dependent on China in the long term”, sums up Tatiana Jean, director of the Russia/NIS center at the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI).
She observes that Beijing is in the current context “the most valuable political and economic support for Russia”. And “as long as it has its support, masked by the screen of China’s supposedly neutral position, it will be able to continue the war”.
However, Moscow, mired in the Ukrainian conflict, has so far not obtained military support.
China has not yet “crossed the line” of delivering lethal weapons to Russia in the midst of the war in Ukraine, US Foreign Minister Antony Blinken told the Senate on Wednesday.
For several weeks, American diplomacy has exerted intense diplomatic pressure on China to avoid such deliveries.
Antoine Bondaz does not believe “for a single moment that China will massively deliver armament systems to Russia” at a time when Beijing intends to play the role of stabilizer “with non-Western countries”. Especially since it would expose itself to sanctions.
On a more optimistic note, some specialists like the independent expert Konstantin Kalachev believe that “the main thing is that this summit has reduced to zero the risks of an escalation of the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv towards a nuclear conflict” .
Because, he says, the Russian president will not risk “disappointing his main partner, Xi, who ensures his survival”.