Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Chinese communist leader Xi Jinping’s People’s Republic of China (PRC) in mid-May is notable, first, for the declaratory statements that they conveyed to the world.
They signed a joint statement on deepening ties between them. These links include trade and diplomatic support. Both emphasized that the world is multipolar, there is a new path for major countries other than the one set by the United States, and Beijing supports Moscow in its war with Ukraine. What Putin has called the “unprecedented level of strategic partnership” Russia has with the PRC. He also said that Russia seeks to “tighten coordination” in order to “counter Washington’s destructive and hostile course.” In essence, they want to convey that the days of the United States are over.
But the meeting was more significant because it demonstrated the imbalance of power between Xi and Putin. Power is everything in international politics, the coin of the realm. Putin’s Russia is significantly less powerful than Xi’s PRC. Putin needs Xi more than Xi needs Putin. The fact is Putin is a supplicant. That is a consequence of his decision to invade Ukraine. Xi is in the driver’s seat in his relationship with Russia, and any support he provides will come at a tremendous cost to Putin. In the back of Putin’s mind, it must always be that Xi will terminate support and perhaps work to overthrow him if he steps out of line.
But Putin is valuable to Xi for four strategic reasons. First, as a distraction for the United States and its allies as he acts in the Indo-Pacific against U.S. allies like the Philippines and U.S. partners like Taiwan. The longer the war on Ukraine continues, the greater this danger. Reports that NATO will send many thousands of military trainers to Ukraine would ensure that NATO forces will clash with Russians. In turn, that introduces the risk of inadvertent or deliberate escalation in the conventional realm as well as the possibility of escalation to the nuclear level. This might entail an initial use by Russia of one or more tactical nuclear weapons. The door would be open to rapid escalation to the strategic level. At a minimum, this will consume the resources of the U.S. national security community and reduce the ability of the United States to have a credible conventional and nuclear deterrent in the Indo-Pacific. If deterrence fails, it will also hobble the U.S. response in a war with the PRC. In essence, Xi wants the war in Ukraine to continue. The worse it is, the more likely the United States will enter it, and the greater freedom of action Xi will receive. The only force keeping Xi in line is the U.S. military, and if it cannot, then the window of opportunity is open to a far more aggressive Chinese regime that will profoundly damage U.S. national security.
Second, a dependent Russia secures the PRC’s northern flank. After meeting with Xi in Beijing, Putin traveled to Harbin in Manchuria, where he visited St. Sophia, a Russian Orthodox Church that is now a testament to a Russia that once controlled the city but lost it. The visit to Harbin was telling as a sign of Russia’s weakened power. Manchuria was once a “great game,” where China and Russia, and later China, Russia, and Japan vied for influence. Russia’s lost influence in Manchuria must be a warning to Putin, as his fear must be that Xi has designs on Siberia and the Russian Far East. The PRC is an expansionist great power. Its expansionistic designs also include Russian territory. Putin should pause to consider whether it is in Russia’s interest to serve Xi’s interests to allow the PRC to grow in power and influence while he is weakened in war.
Third, the PRC’s dominance secures its western flank as its influence eclipses Russia’s in Central Asia. Again, that benefits Xi, not Putin, and is another cost of his war. It is unclear whether Russia will ever again have the level of influence in Central Asia in the wake of the war that it had before.
Fourth, the Putin-Xi meeting demonstrates that a Russia-PRC relationship entails a military dimension, from joint exercises to the need for the U.S. nuclear war plans to simultaneously cover both the very large Russian and rapidly expanding PRC’s arsenal, as senior U.S. military officers have warned. Sino-Russian military cooperation complicates U.S. war planning and introduces the risk of coercion, including nuclear coercion, against U.S. interests.
U.S. interests are being tested as they have not been since the 1980s. However, it is not only the United States that Putin must consider the costs of falling under Xi’s influence. The smiles and happy talk cannot conceal that he is subordinate to Xi. If Russia wins the war, Putin will then have to win the peace, which will include trying to distance himself from Xi to restore Russia’s freedom of action. Xi is not going to like that. If Russia loses, Putin will be overthrown, perhaps at Xi’s instigation and with his support. If the war continues, Russia will receive the sucker’s payoff, shouldering a tremendous cost of war while Xi smiles from the sidelines—the happiest of tertius gaudens. But the best of all possible worlds for Xi is that there is a war between NATO and Russia. If Xi sits it out, he wins. However, if he chooses to aggress, then his hyperaggressive ambitions will have the best chance of success at the least cost. It is extremely doubtful that the U.S. military could simultaneously fight a conventional war with Russia in Eastern Europe and the PRC in the Indo-Pacific. Nuclear escalation then enters as a distinct possibility; thus, the costs are unlike any the United States has experienced in its history.
Because power is everything in international politics, the center of gravity in the Russo-Ukrainian war is not to be found in Kyiv or Moscow but in Beijing. If the Biden administration focused on evicting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from power, the driver of the war would be eliminated, and most importantly, the existential threat to the United States would be eliminated. Instead, the Biden administration will not act against the center of gravity of the enemy. It seems to be devoted to fighting on the periphery, against a second- or third-order foe, and to flirt with the possibility of rapid vertical and horizontal escalation of the war. This ensures that Xi continues to benefit from the war at a time when he and the CCP face profound domestic problems and might be overthrown. This is a wasted strategic opportunity for the United States and one that may not come again.
