China’s next chess move would go a long way in determining whether wanton killing and destruction would continue on a frightening scale or whether Vladimir Putin would quickly negotiate a face-saving peace treaty and call off the invasion.
By Tiko Okoye
Believe it or not, it’s been only 20 days since Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24, but a lot of water has passed under the bridge that makes it seem like the largely one-sided war has been raging for much more longer.
If there were any doubts about the nature of their relationship, Beijing’s axis with Moscow was recently cemented during the recently concluded 2022 Winter Olympics, as Xi and Putin clinked wine glasses to make a toast to “a cooperation with no limits.” Many averred that the arranged marriage – nevertheless ‘made in heaven’ – is bound to make it impossible for the NATO military alliance to defeat their joint forces.
There’s no gainsaying that China and Russia share the same world view: a hardcore hostility to, and a staggering contempt for, liberal values. China is Russia’s biggest trade partner, and both are collaborating to create a new world order that would counterbalance American dominance and further their own geopolitical aims – China’s in the Asia-Pacific region and Russia in the dismembered Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
As a result of being constantly harassed by Washington, Xi has heavily invested in the bilateral relationship with Putin – both personally and politically – in sync with the popular Chinese maxim that says: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Russia has been China’s major trading partner over the years – much to their mutual benefit in softening the impact of economic sanctions slammed against them from time to time by the USA.
Still, it would be expecting too much to believe that Beijing can hardly forget how Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev withdrew all support to China’s nascent industrial development in the 1950s and 1960s because the latter, under Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai, bucked Russia’s game plan requiring it to serve obsequiously as Moscow’s megaphone in political and military terms. China practically became the economic superpower the world now knows strictly by dragging itself up by its own bootstraps and engaging in a plethora of conventional and unconventional methods of acquiring technology.
It’d, therefore, come as no surprise to astute observers should Beijing view Moscow’s faltering Ukrainian invasion as payback time, especially as necessity is increasingly being laid upon Xi to adroitly run with the hare and simultaneously hunt with the hound. In line with the difficult balancing act, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi recently publicly addressed Putin’s so-called ‘special military operations’ in Ukraine as a ‘war’ for the very first time.
While still refraining from calling it an invasion, even calling it a war is bound to have created tremor in the Kremlin. But the clincher came with Wang’s emphasis that “all countries’ sovereignty and territorial integrity should be protected, including Ukraine’s” – totally at variance with the rather harsh diplomatic rhetoric which was in vogue in Beijing during the early days of the invasion.
Since the invasion hasn’t panned out the way Putin promised Xi, China would inevitably start rethinking its return on the alignment with Moscow and avoid the foolhardiness of taking Panadol for another man’s headache. It’s increasingly becoming crystal-clear that Beijing is no longer willing to support the Ukraine invasion without demur. Wang was, however, quick to ‘clarify’ that “there’s no (basis for any) comparison between Ukraine and the renegade province of Taiwan; the former is a sovereign state and the latter is not a full UN member but a unique polity.”
Interestingly, China has commenced counter measures designed to protect its economy and fiat currency from the rouble’s crash. It has doubled the margin size by which the Russian currency can move against the Yuan to 10 percent in daily state-controlled trading. This means that China wouldn’t have to subsidise Russian buyers purchasing Chinese goods using roubles at a rate different from market prices.
“The childhood shows the day,” intoned English poet and prose-writer John Milton, “as morning shows the day.” The vote at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly ought to have served as a flapping red flag! Should a good ally and a true friend like China have abstained from such a crucial vote? Shouldn’t “cooperation with no limits” be made of a sterner stuff?
Incidentally, China is also Ukraine’s top trade partner and has enjoyed a friendly diplomatic relationship with the Zelenskyy administration. Why then did Xi give the thumbs up to Putin’s invasion plan? There are three plausible reasons. Putin promised that the military action would be “quick, effective and efficient.” Fully appreciating that good is the enemy of better, Xi was enthused that a stooge heading a puppet government put in place by Moscow would fetch Beijing a better reward than Zelenskyy could ever provide. The invasion and its aftermath would serve as a dress rehearsal for the invasion of Taiwan which Beijing is contemplating.
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There are many who accuse the West, particularly America, of setting a trap and provoking Putin just to trigger a conflict in Ukraine. If it’s true, it won’t still speak highly of the intelligence of a hard-nosed dictator and master spy like Putin. Apart from not being mindful of his country’s humiliating experience in Afghanistan, it is moronic to point a finger at an adversary as the source of your tribulations when three are pointing back at you! No sane person jumps into a raging fire just because your enemy provoked you into doing so?
Many aver that NATO’s failure to honour a yet-to-be-seen agreement it allegedly reached with Moscow in 1991, and ‘renewed’ in 2008, to freeze its membership is at the root of the invasion. But even then, is it right in this day and age to mimicking the 1884 Berlin Conference that shared the African continent and allow regional and global powers broker binding agreements as if the independent and sovereign nations they are discussing about have no right to chart their own destinies, including who to associate, or be friendly, with?
Is it acceptable, for instance, for Nigeria to invade the Republic of Benin for ‘putting the security and stability’ of Nigeria at risk with the recent reported release of secessionist leader Sunday Igboho from prison, on the grounds that the Republic of Benin should have known better than to ‘mess’ with the West African powerhouse?
Now this: Before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia only had to contend with just four former Soviet member-nations of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine on its borders. But by occupying Ukraine, the number has dramatically increased with an additional five – Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania and Slovenia – all of which, including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and excluding Moldova, are members of NATO! Figure it out yourself: Has the invasion and occupation of Ukraine prevented Russia from having a much smaller contiguous border with the NATO alliance or enhanced its security?
Rather than bullying and/or invading former USSR member-nations, Putin should have simply used the time-tested approach of Mafioso dons: make them mouth-watering offers they can’t refuse!
All said and done, I remain fully persuaded that Putin’s grave miscalculations are traceable to chronic optical illusion induced by over-optimistic intelligence reports.
China’s next chess move would go a long way in determining whether wanton killing and destruction would continue on a frightening scale or whether Vladimir Putin would quickly negotiate a face-saving peace treaty and call off the invasion.
But one thing is for sure: The Ukrainian conundrum could either end sooner than later with a regime change in Moscow or foster an excruciating, long-drawn-out ‘Super Cold War.” I cannot see Europe re-establishing normal relations with Putin any time in the future. NATO knows this, and so does Putin. It is either Putin destroys NATO or NATO destroys Putin (not Russia, mind you). It is what it is.
