Xi Jinping visited “dear friend” Vladimir Putin in Moscow to promote his peace plan and sign deals that will take trade to $200 billion. For Putin, increasingly isolated internationally, the visit was a lifeline. For Xi, an opportunity to promote China's interests and his own image.
Xi says Putin is his “dear friend” but puts China’s interests first
The arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's NATO allies promising even more military support to Kyiv, including the intention of Poland and Slovakia to send planes to the country invaded by Russia; this is the general background against which the Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrived in Moscow.
The Chinese president's visit had already been scheduled when the International Criminal Court announced that Vladimir Putin and an associate of his were practically and officially suspected of war crimes. But the ICC arrest warrant for Putin does nothing to change the logic of this announced visit. China, like the US for that matter, does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC. Yet on Friday, when all of humanity was stunned to learn that Putin was joining other war criminals like Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic or Liberia's Charles Taylor, Russia seemed more isolated internationally than ever. This is also because its neighbor Finland overcame, on the same day, the obstacle in the way of joining NATO. Turkey and Hungary also announced that they were starting ratification procedures.
Against this background, Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow came as a lifeline for Russia and for Putin in particular. It is a peace mission, said diplomats in Beijing who are working hard on their leader’s image as a world peacemaker, recently reconfirmed as president. Surely the success of brokering the deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia could give Xi Jinping an aura of pacifism in the situation involving Russia and Ukraine as well. But things are totally different. In the case of Iran and the Saudis, there were discussions prior to the Chinese mediation, and the two countries were not literally fighting each other. In the case of Russia and Ukraine, we are talking about a bloody deadlock from which the Russians - who are asking for help with the hope of integrating themselves into an anti-Western bloc - do not really know how to get out.
“Dear friend”, Xi Jinping called Putin in Moscow. The two have much in common: they are authoritarian leaders and embrace the idea of a multipolar world free from US dominance. But until then, Putin's warehouses are empty and he would like to replenish the arsenal, and China can do that. Is Putin in a position to force Beijing's hand? Is not! First of all, for the simple reason that at the moment China is Russia's main trading partner and buys most of the gas and oil the latter exports.
Xi Jinping’s peace plan, a Minsk made in China
What does Xi Jinping want? I think his target is neither Russia nor Ukraine. What he cares about is China. So, it is not Russia that can help China to remain at the top of the world economies, but rather the West, China's biggest market. A first step would be to regain the trust of the French-German twin engine. And at the moment, the only possibility to repair the relationship with Europe is to stop the Russians.
Let’s take a look at the 12- point peace plan published by Beijing in February.
The plan calls for respecting the sovereignty of all countries, abandoning the Cold War mentality, ending hostilities, resuming peace talks, resolving the humanitarian crisis, protecting civilians and prisoners of war (POW), keeping nuclear power plants safe, reducing strategic risks, facilitating grain exports, ending unilateral sanctions, maintaining the stability of industrial and supply chains and promoting post-conflict reconstruction.
Each of the 12 points has an explanation on the website of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In none of them did I find the idea that the Russians should leave Ukraine. And then? Quid prodest?
Negotiations cannot take place with the Russians on the territory of Ukraine, they can only take place on the condition that the Russians withdraw. Otherwise, we go back to another kind of Minsk, a Minsk made in China. At this point, any acceptance of some form of ceasefire would only give Putin time to consolidate his position in the occupied territories, rebuild his arsenal and prepare a new offensive, which is totally unacceptable.
The stakes of the visit to Moscow: 200 billion USD in trade
I was saying that recently Xi was reconfirmed for a new term as head of the Chinese state. This makes him the second man with such power after Mao Zedong. Everyone compares Xi to Mao. But Mao's name is synonymous with murder, through starvation, persecution, labor camps, mass executions. About 80 million Chinese died this way. Not that Xi would have a poor resume when it comes to human rights violations and labor camps, if we only think about the Uyghur minority systematically subjected to persecution.
The world has evolved, China has evolved, the Chinese people has evolved. Why wouldn't the Chinese leader also evolve from the image of a "satrap" to that of an "enlightened despot"? Above all, Xi seeks to create for himself the image of an important leader with weight on the international stage. A counterweight to what the leader at the White House, whoever that may be, symbolizes. The multipolar world that authoritarian leaders wish for must start from here. India doesn't have a far-reaching leader, and Putin the Bear is a bit ruffled right now, so the Panda Bear is here to hold everyone to his chest.
The deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia is a victory for what is being built now, the foundation for this kind of leader. It is the example that Chinese diplomacy sets when it says it reflects the vision of a new style of global governance. I was saying earlier on Veridica.ro that only after the 14th National People's Congress in March, when Xi was re-elected president of the People's Republic of China, we would start seeing his true colors. .
Well, since assuming his third term as president, Xi has taken a tougher stance against what he calls an American effort to block China's rise. Xi has learned from the lesson of Ukraine, and to counter the US’s "blockages", he has urged Chinese industries to reduce their dependence on Western technology. Xi has recently described China as a nation under siege, as has Putin in all his speeches to Russians. "Western countries led by the US have implemented the isolation, encirclement and suppression of China, which has brought unprecedented severe challenges to our country's development," Xi told the National Assembly this month. So now in Moscow, when Xi, quoted by Xinhua, says "the two countries have deepened political mutual trust, converging interests and people-to-people bonding, and have continued to advance cooperation in economy, trade, investment, energy, people to people and cultural exchanges as well as cooperation at local levels”, we could translate that as follows: a lot of oil and gas for China at the lowest possible price. Xi's visit to Moscow resulted in 79 contracts, and the volume of trade will exceed 200 billion dollars.
Xi supports Putin’s war with Taiwan in mind
However, China remains anchored in the global economy, and Xi and his collaborators do not want to be the "evil" on the world stage, at least not in the eyes of Europe. We do know, however, that Xi and Putin have a pretty strong relationship. Since 2012, when Xi Jinping became China's president, the two have met 39 times. What we do not know is what the two discussed in the tete a tete held in Moscow. Did Putin ask for weapons? Of course he did. Did Xi say he would give them to Putin? I don’t ‘think so. But maybe it doesn't even matter if he gives him "bazookas made in China" or not, as long as he maintains the war machine through the signed contracts.
Beijing's math may be that if the war in Ukraine continues, they will be less and less interested in getting involved in another. Don't imagine that if he put on the pacifist coat now, that’s it, he no longer wants anything from Taiwan. So China's "neutrality" is hard to swallow in the free world where NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says Beijing lacks credibility especially for failing to condemn the illegal invasion of Ukraine. And how does Xi's visit looks overseas, in Washington ? Like a huge tarp covering the war crimes committed by Vladimir Putin.
