War in Ukraine – China in Strategic Dilemma With Putin’s Russia.

Putin's failure reflects negatively on Xi Jinping's China.

It was on February 24, 2022, that Vladimir Putin decided to launch the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Since that day, Xi Jinping has given his unwavering support to Putin, as part of the “limitless friendship” signed by the agreement of February 4, 2022, between the two countries.

China has logically refused to apply international sanctions, has abstained at the UN, and has relayed Moscow's narrative blaming NATO for the war. The war in Ukraine has thus become the laboratory of the axis of authoritarian regimes and their strategy to bring about a post-democratic and post-Western world.

Betting on a quick Russian victory, Xi Jinping intended to make China the real winner of the conflict. The coalition of authoritarian regimes was to achieve decisive success and a breakthrough, at the cost of increasing Russia's dependence on China due to the inevitable international sanctions.

The Western democracies were supposed to suffer humiliation and provide further proof of their powerlessness and division in the face of the threat of armed force. Russia's annexation of Ukraine was finally the best dress rehearsal for China's annexation of Taiwan.

But as you know, history is never written, especially in the case of recourse to war, where you know when you start it, but when and how you end it. The cult of personality and the absence of countervailing powers typical of 21st-century autocracies have pushed them to the brink.

For yes, mistakes have been made. Undeniably.

Putin's failed Ukraine strategy reflects badly on Xi Jinping's China

For Putin's Russia, the aggression of Ukraine translates into a quadruple failure: military, economic, diplomatic, and moral. And Putin's failure reflects on Xi Jinping's China. This failure will amplify many of China's difficulties, in the same year that the 20th Congress of the Communist Party is about to consecrate Xi Jinping's power by investing him with a third presidential mandate.

To be allies and to share in the hatred of democracy and resentment against the West, China and Russia are in asymmetrical situations. Russia is a demographically, economically, and technologically declining power, committed to a strategy of autarky and territorial gains through the systematic use of armed force. China is a rising power that has built its emergence on globalization, led by a Communist Party whose legitimacy is based on the reunification of the Chinese nation but also on its ability to ensure economic stability and development.

Xi Jinping's gamble in supporting Vladimir Putin in his imperial enterprise is about to backfire on China, destabilized by the geopolitical explosion and the economic shock caused by the war in Ukraine.

Beijing is first of all confronted with the impasse of the zero Covid strategies in the face of Omicron as well as the refusal to vaccinate the elderly. This has forced the 13 million inhabitants of Shenzhen and the 26 million inhabitants of Shanghai to be confined, with devastating effects on production and supply chains. Births have dropped to 10.62 million in 2021 from 14.65 million in 2019 for a population of 1.41 billion, accelerating aging and constraining potential growth.

In the short term, the real estate crash continues. The ideological and regulatory takeover of the financial, technology, and private education sectors leads to a sharp decline in activity and innovation. Falling global activity and soaring energy and food prices are now telescoping a slowing economy. In the longer term, the fragmentation of globalization is calling into question the export-led development model that sustained China's Forty Glorious Years.

China is now in a strategic dilemma

Support for Russia also reinforces the deterioration of China's image, as do concerns about its power ambitions and its desire to expand in Taiwan and the China Sea. The shift to a head-on confrontation with the democracies, as evidenced by the icy atmosphere of the summit with the European Union, carries a very high economic, social and diplomatic cost.

The postulate of the decadence and disunity of the West is belied by the reactions to Russian aggression. Ukraine also provides Taiwan, even if the situation is very different, with useful lessons on the strategy and means that a democratic people can mobilize to resist the attack of an authoritarian empire.

Under Xi Jinping's support for Vladimir Putin, a double gap is thus opening up. A gap between China's visions and strategic objectives and those of Russia. A gap between Xi Jinping's line and China's fundamental interests. China is now facing a real strategic dilemma.