Grandstand. Faced with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, China’s position is often described as ambiguous. This is, in fact, not the case: it continues to reaffirm its support for Russia. Admittedly, China has so far abstained from voting on the subject in the UN Security Council. But it has a tradition of only very rarely affixing its veto (only sixteen times since it became a permanent member of the Security Council in 1971). And she actively contributed to softening the text of the February 25 draft resolution, so that it condemns Russia’s actions less frontally. During the vote on March 2, the Chinese ambassador to the United Nations justified his country’s new abstention in terms consistent with the official Russian vocabulary, rejecting the“expansion of military blocs”in reference to NATO.
China has only slightly adjusted its rhetoric since the start of the conflict, if one reads the statements carefully. Chinese diplomats continue to blame the crisis on NATO and the United States, which allegedly “fanned the flames” (expression regularly used by the spokespersons of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Diplomacy, like official Chinese television, widely relays the Russian discourse, emphasizing more than ever the presumed responsibility of the United States.
At the same time, Beijing officially reaffirmed, at the beginning of March, that Russia was “his eternal friend” and its most important strategic partner. These words are not insignificant in the current context – even less so than when the two countries had mentioned, on February 4, on the sidelines of the Winter Olympics, “boundless friendship”.
Interests in Ukraine
Certainly, Beijing is not happy about the war situation in Ukraine. The Chinese authorities had to quickly seek solutions to evacuate the approximately 6,000 Chinese nationals on site (most of them now in China). Beijing must also reconsider its economic and logistical interests in the country, which have not been negligible up to now (food processing, telecommunications, so-called “new silk road” trains passing through Ukraine), and anticipate the consequences of the sanctions against Russia on its own economy.
Because China vigorously opposes the sanctions imposed on Moscow and will continue to “trade normally with Russia”, including the massive import of hydrocarbons, as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has reminded us on several occasions. The objective of increasing trade between the two countries to 200 billion dollars (about 180 billion euros) by 2024, announced in early February during Vladimir Putin’s visit to Beijing, remains unchanged and could be reached sooner than expected. In any case, this would still be well below the current volume of trade between China and the European Union ($586 billion in 2020, according to the European Institute of Statistics) or with the United States (555 billion in 2020), which remain by far Beijing’s most important trading partners. In this context, and as the administration of Joe Biden increases its pressure to dissuade China from strengthening its support for Moscow, it would be rational to anticipate an adjustment of the Chinese position in order to manage relations with its first trading partners.
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