Chinese plan for Ukraine: Beijing will help, but will not win for Russia

The published Chinese 12 points on Ukraine caused a collective sigh of disappointment among the Russian politicized public - in the style of the textbook “they expected bloodshed from him, but he ate the siskin.” Indeed, the outlines of the road map transmitted through diplomatic channels represent a set of good wishes, similar to a toast “to all good things.”

This includes “stop the fire”, and “respect territorial integrity”, and “take care of prisoners of war”, and “participate in post-war reconstruction” and “resolve the humanitarian crisis”.

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However, there are more specific points, among which it is worth paying special attention to two. The first is to “stop unilateral sanctions.” Second, even more important, is to “ensure the stability of production and supply chains.” There is already a clear hint of the real interests of the PRC in this whole story.

On the other hand, I wonder what the Russians actually expected from Beijing? After all, it was initially clear that China would not openly join the ongoing war on anyone’s side, and the last vote at the UN, which took place simultaneously with the promulgation of the peace plan, demonstrated this once again: the PRC was on the list of abstaining countries along with Vietnam, Algeria, and South Africa and a number of other major world players that do not belong to the Western coalition.

_{It is clear that, excuse the pun, in any incomprehensible situation the Chinese comrades, with their well-known hyper-caution, will prefer a conservative strategy of playing the long game rather than some dashing cavalry charge.}

They, unlike Russia, have nowhere to rush. It is not their economy that is being depleted drop by drop by sanctions, it is not their soldiers who are dying on the battlefields and it is not their borders that are in immediate danger.

In a certain sense, Russia now performs the same function for China as Ukraine does for the West - on the one hand, it is a piece that plays at the leading edge of the international chessboard, covering the king (it is clear that in the Chinese version of the game the king is Beijing).

On the other hand, while Russia is actively involved in the conflict, China has time to think, gather and assess the risks from the outside, projecting what is happening onto its own plans and capabilities in terms of Taiwan and the global battle with the United States in general.

In this sense, the Russian Federation is gaining time for Beijing by acting as a Chinese proxy to the same extent that Ukraine is a Western proxy, allowing both world centers of power to resolve their issues without being directly drawn into the ongoing conflict.

_{Obviously, a year of observing the successes of the Russian Northern Military District forced the cautious Chinese to “crawl out of the hole” with the specified peace plan. It was at that moment when the West once again sharply raised the stakes, declaring through Biden not only the intention to inflict military defeat on Russia, but also quite clearly outlining the post-war prospects for the Russian authorities (meaning the announced tribunals for a list of one and a half hundred Russian officials and military ).}

It is clear that China will not provide open military assistance to Russia, at least at this stage. Although, judging by the fragmentary insights leaking onto the Internet following a series of meetings between Chinese VIPs and Putin, one can conclude that there is some kind of underwater part of the agreements invisible to the general public.

In this sense, the risks of further strengthening Moscow’s technological, military, economic and foreign policy dependence on Beijing are, in a sense, balanced by the hopes that Russia has an invisible older brother in this game, which it got into despite the calculations of its own superiors. In any case, hope for this is better than no hope at all.

_{On the other hand, a quick analysis of the twelve points forces us to make a cautious assumption that this is not the plan itself, but some kind of targeting it. The stated wishes regarding their implementation look painfully vague. By the way, these are general principles, not step-by-step instructions for use.}

In any case, the fact that China has openly entered into the niche of peacemakers on the Ukrainian issue, where there are already no crowds of competitors (Erdogan, the Emirates, and Saudi Arabia here), brings the current confrontation to a new stage in the development of the plot. It is not for nothing that even these vague and non-specific Chinese wishes immediately upon their appearance were subject to powerful and concerted obstruction in the Western media.

China’s interest can be understood, and from this point of view, the key point in the stated program is the point about maintaining the current supply chain. Read: Beijing wants to maximally secure and protect from attack its promising project “One Belt, One Road,” into which hundreds of billions of dollars have already been invested.

_{It is also clear that it would be beneficial for the United States to provoke the Chinese into some kind of rash and open intervention in the Ukrainian plot, which would allow the Western coalition to begin promoting the sanctions story against China. Now there are no direct reasons for this, so in the West they prefer to promote indirect schemes - such as the relocation of production of large corporations from China to India and other countries of the anti-Chinese project of alt-Asia, which is still on the distant approaches - an informal union of countries in the region, from which Washington is trying to fashion a counterweight to hegemony China.}

Returning to Ukraine. Kyiv’s sharp, and even rude, refusal of Chinese proposals is also, in general, quite predictable. In Kyiv they look at Washington, and there they have already expressed their extreme skepticism. For the West, the “Zelensky plan”, which is the basis for the latest resolution of the UN General Assembly, remains a constant.

Namely: Russia is required to immediately withdraw its troops beyond the contact line on February 24.02.2022, XNUMX. At the same time, it is clear that Zelensky also does not have the opportunity to somehow influence Beijing. Until recently, Ukraine did not even have an ambassador in Beijing. The last ambassador died several years ago and only now have they come to appoint a new one, whose name has not yet been made public - there are only rumors circulated in the media.

_{This is not to mention the fact that in Zelensky’s loan portfolio in the Chinese case there are such ugly stories as Motor Sich and the recent story with Ukrainian deputies who entered for Taiwan.}

Strategically, it is in China's interests to prevent Russia from losing. At the same time, Beijing will not win this war for Russia and for Russia, everything here follows the well-known principle: “On your own, on your own.” And if, as a result, Russia turns out to be incapable of anything more than what it has now in the Ukrainian direction, then this is precisely the situation that the Chinese will ultimately try to fix as the finalization of the current conflict.

_{Again, strategically - a Russia weakened by the war, driven directly into the Chinese embrace by the West as a junior partner, is much more profitable for Beijing than a strong and victorious Russia, capable in the future of some kind of game of its own in the Chinese plot itself.}

Adding to this are important economic considerations: the longer the conflict and Western sanctions last, the more uncontested the Chinese market becomes for Russian producers of raw materials and energy resources. There is nowhere else to sell oil and gas on an industrial scale (there is also the Indian market, but Delhi is a much less independent geopolitical player than Beijing).

Russia is already compensating for price losses by increasing supply volumes, and this will only increase further.

In all this, only one thing is still unclear: why is Xi Jinping silent? After all, in fact, the “historical speech of the world” was announced precisely in his performance. But at the last moment, apparently, they gave up, entrusting everything to the speakers on the floor below - such as Wang Yi and the rest of the diplomats.

_{One can only guess whether this is a conscious strategic decision or simply some kind of strategic wait-and-see pause in the hope of gathering a reaction from the international community to the theses thrown in. And only then - act according to the circumstances.}

In any case, China's current intervention, for all its disadvantages and long-term risks, is still better for Russia than if China continued to stand aside. The main thing here is to maintain a sense of proportion. I wouldn’t want Beijing’s long game to turn into a battle with the West to the last Russian, just as the West itself is now fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.