To analyse
Ukraine: how is China, an ally of Russia, positioned?
Three weeks ago, the Chinese and Russian leaders said the friendship between their countries "has no limits" when they met in Beijing on the eve of the Winter Olympics.
This was before Russia invaded Ukraine.
AP - Ng Han Guan
Text by: Stéphane Lagarde Follow
4 mins
China abstains in vote against UN resolution to sanction Russia, while Chinese foreign minister makes no mention of Ukraine's sovereignty in phone call to his German counterpart.
China oscillates between benevolent and embarrassed neutrality.
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From our correspondent in Beijing
,
Even though ties have never been stronger between Moscow and Beijing, China can hardly be seen as supporting the war in Europe.
Firstly because the doctrine of Chinese diplomacy has until now been based on respect for the sovereignty and integrity of countries.
China did not recognize the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, if it does for the Donbass, some will be able to say tomorrow that the autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Tibet in the west of China are worth the Republics secessionists from Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
But it is true that the line is less clear than before.
Calling his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov last week, Wang Yi said China respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries, but when he is on the phone with Berlin, with Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, he speaks only of Russia's security concerns, the dangerousness of the sanctions and the responsibility of NATO and the United States.
China is therefore in a wait-and-see and embarrassed position.
Chinese diplomacy walks on a thread with the risk, by not condemning the Russian invasion, of endangering its nationals in Ukraine.
The Chinese Embassy in Kiev has asked its nationals to keep a low profile, to put away the Chinese flags so as not to complicate their evacuation from the country.
►
To read also
:
Ukraine: faced with anti-Beijing sentiment, the Chinese asked to hide their identity
Economic sanctions that worry Beijing
It is unclear whether the Chinese knew about Putin's plans, but it is certain that the sanctions that could cripple the Russian economy are being closely monitored by Beijing.
If China provides economic support to Russia to ease the sanctions, Chinese banks could pay the price.
The war in Ukraine may have an impact on Chinese exports to Russia and on Chinese interests in Ukraine, considered a strategic crossroads of the "New Silk Roads".
For now, the Russian war in Ukraine is a debacle for Chinese diplomacy.
Putin is “
make NATO great again
”.
NATO considered brain dead -
to use the expression of Emmanuel Macron
- a few weeks ago has come back in force.
Europe is remilitarizing
,
leaving the United States the ability to redeploy in Asia.
At the same time, the personal ties between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping make it difficult to openly condemn a friend who came to support China at the Olympics.
►
To read also
:
Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin in tune before the start of the Beijing Olympics
Discreet civil society
The Chinese internet is more monitored than in Russia.
Civil society is further muzzled, and when Chinese university professors tried to speak out against the war – what Chinese state media calls a “
special military operation
” – they were immediately censored.
The censors, as often in Beijing, preferred to open the floodgates to the nationalists, pillars of the regime.
On February 28, the state media resumed Russian propaganda calling the Ukrainian government “Nazi”.
The Chinese internet has been flooded with a wave of pro-Putin comments with sometimes gritty jokes about Ukrainian women.
Censorship had to block these accounts so as not to complicate the evacuation of Chinese from Ukraine.
China observes
Beijing is already pushing Moscow and Kiev to negotiate.
A neutrality treaty between the two parties would certainly suit China.
In the meantime, Chinese leaders are watching and looking for a way out of such European sanctions if, for example, the Chinese army invades Taiwan.
How to get out of the Swift system for international transactions, how to preserve its energetic autonomy?
Beijing and Moscow have just signed a 30-year oil and gas contract.
How to avoid the freezing of central bank assets or how to prevent the enormous Chinese savings invested in the West from being confiscated?
►
To read also
:
Sanctions against Russia: the banishment of the Swift network, a decisive weapon?
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