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Xi Jinping’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow last week was their 40th personal encounter, but the first since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Putin launched that invasion just weeks after the two dictators met for the 39th time in Beijing for the Winter Olympics opening. They announced their “no-limits” strategic partnership, under which each pledged support for the other’s confrontation with the United States.
Some Westerners speculated on whether Xi knew of Putin’s plan and gave it a green light, though the Biden administration proudly proclaimed it knew all along the attack was coming.
Despite Russian — and American — expectations of a quick Russian conquest of Kyiv and the removal of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s democratically-elected government, the Ukrainians’ battlefield competence and valor has prevented Russian forces from achieving Putin’s objective.
Western observers then coalesced around a new assessment of Xi’s support for Putin’s aggression. They decided Beijing was having second thoughts about being associated with Russia’s war on Ukraine — a possible model for a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attack on Taiwan — not because it was morally wrong or violated international law, but because it had failed so ignominiously. But, again, they misjudged Xi’s intentions as he calculated the implications for his own planned expansionism in the Indo-Pacific.
Beyond Putin’s crime of starting a war of aggression, Russian forces have carried out a daily show of horrors of additional war crimes and crimes against humanity that have shocked the world’s conscience. But Xi’s conscience was not shocked, given China’s own crimes condemned by the United Nations and labeled as genocide by both the Trump and Biden administrations.
Instead, despite U.S. warnings against assisting Russia’s aggression and criminality, China has dramatically increased its purchases of Russian oil and gas, replacing the funds lost from Western sanctions. Beijing has supplied Russia with materiel and dual-use technology such as drone components to keep its military operating.
The Biden administration has now further diluted its fading “red line” and prohibits only loosely-defined “lethal” items — a ban also now being crossed with small arms, though Washington insists China is only “considering” more high-end weapons.
Xi’s visit with Putin was a major doubling down on China’s political and “moral” support for the outlaw Russian regime, significantly eroding its diplomatic isolation. Their joint statement was titled “Deepening the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination for the New Era.
