China’s Xi Reaffirms Support for Moscow in Call With Putin – Vigour Times

The Chinese readout of the Wednesday call was emblematic of Beijing’s position in neither criticizing nor endorsing Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, while the Russian description of the call contained language suggesting Moscow has Beijing’s backing of the war.

According to China’s Foreign Ministry, Mr. Xi said during the call, “China is willing to continue mutual support with Russia on issues related to core interests and major concerns such as sovereignty and security.”

A statement from the Kremlin, meanwhile, said the Chinese leader “noted the legitimacy of the actions taken by Russia to protect the fundamental national interests in the face of challenges to its security created by external forces.”

While the two countries’ representation of the phone call diverged, their readouts nonetheless demonstrated that China has little intention of dialing back its political alignment with Russia, even though it has damaged Beijing’s relations with the U.S.-led West and undermined its efforts to uphold itself as a responsible world power.

A shared interest with Mr. Putin in confronting Washington has driven Mr. Xi to keep Russia as China’s most important strategic collaborator even if it isn’t an outright ally.

In internal meetings over the past year, according to Chinese officials and foreign-policy advisers, Mr. Xi has emphasized the U.S. as the biggest threat to China’s interests, shifting Beijing’s foreign-policy focus toward aligning with Moscow and away from building ties with Washington. These days, a prevailing view in Beijing’s corridors of power is that the U.S. will shift its attention to further contain China as Russia gets increasingly weakened by Western sanctions.

Both China and Russia have rejected U.S. efforts to work with allies to offer a clear alternative to their autocratic rules. Moscow, isolated by much of the rest of the world, has gone to great lengths to tout its geopolitical alignment with Beijing. Beijing, meanwhile, has accused the U.S. of being the leading instigator of the situation in Ukraine, expressing understanding for what Russia terms as threats to its national security.

“Xi has concluded that he’s in a long-term, ideologically driven competition with the U.S. and Western liberalism,” said Evan Medeiros, a former senior national-security official in the Obama administration and now a professor at Georgetown University. “He sees Russia as an asset to China because both countries see the U.S. as the main threat to their domestic stability and external security.”

Maintaining the partnership with Russia means Beijing has to continue to straddle a persistently difficult diplomatic position. China’s economic interests are much more intertwined with the U.S. and Europe than with Russia. Beijing doesn’t want its relations with Washington to become outright hostile and is still trying to court Brussels by dangling China’s market potential.

Mr. Xi’s call with Mr. Putin came as tentative signs are emerging that some in the Chinese and U.S. governments want to prevent relations from deteriorating further.

Following a meeting between Defense Secretary

Lloyd Austin

and his Chinese counterpart over the past week, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan met for 4½ hours Monday with China’s top foreign-affairs official, Yang Jiechi, in Luxembourg, continuing an effort by both sides to keep communication open.

Some foreign-policy experts see the Xi-Putin call as paving the way for the Chinese leader’s next conversation with President Biden. The last phone call between Messrs. Xi and Biden was in late March, when the American leader warned Mr. Xi that China and its relations with the U.S. would suffer consequences if Beijing provides substantive assistance to Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.

During Wednesday’s call with Mr. Putin, according to the Chinese readout, Mr. Xi welcomed the “good momentum of development” between their countries and said China would independently judge the Ukraine issue based on the context and the rights and wrongs of history, echoing remarks he made to Mr. Putin a day after Russia launched the war in Ukraine in February.

Mr. Xi also told Mr. Putin that all parties should push for an “appropriate settlement” of the crisis, and that China would continue to do its part in that process.

Mr. Putin in turn offered his support for China on issues including Xinjiang, Taiwan and Hong Kong, saying Russia opposes any interference in China’s affairs, according to the Chinese readout.

Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, said the Chinese statement came across as measured in Mr. Xi’s support for Mr. Putin. “Xi reiterated his support for Russia in terms of security and sovereignty,” Ms. Sun said. “But it’s just as important what he didn’t list as areas he supports, namely military, economic and financial aid to Russia.”

So far, Beijing has refrained from coming to Moscow’s aid in a significant way. China is buying Russian farm and energy products, but it is complying with the more damaging financial and technological sanctions the U.S. has imposed on Russia, for fear of losing access to the dollar-dominated global trading system and getting caught up in secondary sanctions.

China has also publicly denied some assertions that Russia has sought its help, either through providing military equipment or economic assistance.

The Kremlin readout of Wednesday’s call, however, noted that “the issues of further development of military and military-technical ties were also touched upon.” It didn’t elaborate.

Martin Chorzempa,

a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said China’s exports to Russia have declined significantly in the past three months compared with preinvasion levels while China’s imports from Russia have surged, partly driven by higher energy prices.

“There has been a broad-based decline in China’s exports to Russia, especially when it comes to electronics and vehicles,” Mr. Chorzempa said. “We’re not seeing China filling the gap created by Western sanctions on Russia.”

Write to Lingling Wei at [email protected] and Sha Hua at [email protected]