Most people know that Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have a special relationship.
There appears to be two possible outcomes regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine: Putin forces Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to renounce any future Ukrainian intent to join NATO or any Western alliance; or Russia fully withdraws.
Russia Wins—China Wins
First, if Russia achieves its objectives in Ukraine, it is clear that severe sanctions against Russia were ineffective because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) did not enforce sanctions against Russia, due to commitments laid out in the Feb. 4 Joint Statement.Second, Russian reliance on China to mitigate the sanctions effects enabled China to control Russia’s currency. In effect, the CCP will have its hands around Putin and the Russian economy’s neck—a good position for a formerly feudal communist state. To punish China for supporting Russia would probably be too painful for the rest of the world economies to implement because of the many co-dependencies.
Russia Loses—China Wins
If Russia is forced to withdraw from Ukraine, Russia will have to continue to deal with the harsh sanctions and, like Germany after World War I, will have to pay costly reparations to Ukraine. This situation will greatly weaken Russia, and China could take advantage of these circumstances by forcing new Russian trade concessions.For example, Russian natural resources could be taken over by the CCP as payment to stabilize the ruble. Other resources, such as the massive water reserves close to the Russia-China border, could be sold to China at a depressed price.
Needed: Wise Leaders
In summary, based on the above analysis, “Russia loses and China wins” appears to be a likely scenario since the Russian military has captured only a small amount of Ukrainian territory since Feb. 24. The Ukrainian military appears to be fighting fiercely and is being resupplied by NATO and others.The rest of the world should ensure that whatever the outcome, Russia does not become a vassal state of China. It is possible that the CCP determined that regardless of the outcome of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it planned to win.
We must learn from the mistakes of World War I and prevent Russia from imploding by stabilizing its economy and encouraging it to join the rest of the free world, just as we did to Japan and Germany after World War II.
Without some very wise leaders seeing the folly of further humiliating a weakened Russia, we will end up with an over-empowered CCP, which would have disastrous consequences for the foreseeable future of mankind.