His forthcoming book, Anastas Mikoyan: An Armenian Reformer in Khrushchev’s Kremlin, will be published by Indiana University Press in July.

Carden: I think we should probably begin with the big New York Times investigation into the war in Ukraine—the big takeaway seemed to be that the role the Biden administration played was far larger and more involved than they ever publicly acknowledged. What are your thoughts on what we learned from that report?

Shakarian: I mean, the report itself is a nothing burger. For anybody who has been following the war in Ukraine seriously, it really doesn’t tell you anything. On the other hand, what’s revealing about the whole thing is that now they’re actually talking about it. Now they’re discussing it openly. Before they weren’t doing that—before they weren’t openly admitting that the US had a direct hand in the war in Ukraine, but it was kind of an open secret, right? What is new is the fact that the Times openly now admits it. That was the most groundbreaking element of this piece.

The other thing that was really striking and really quite distasteful about this article is the way in which it seemed to be an effort, a very elaborate effort through the use of investigative journalism, to blame the Ukrainian people for losing the war—the idea was effectively to say, well, yes, the great guiding hand of Uncle Sam was trying to help these poor Slavs, but they just weren’t listening to us and we are more advanced than they are because we are the great Western civilization, and this is the white man’s burden replayed, except with the Slavic people of Eastern Europe. They just wouldn’t listen. They just couldn’t understand..

Carden: Access journalism at its worst. The reporter ran around these different US bases in Germany, and he got the Pentagon and the IC’s side of the story, and they all wanted to portray how heroic their efforts were to prop up the Ukrainians, and if only they had listened, they would’ve beat the dastardly Russians…

Shakarian: I know. It’s atrocious.

Carden: Since you wrote what is, in my view, the definitive piece on the Russian-Iranian agreement, what are your views with regard to Steve Witkoff’s recent meeting with Abbas Araghchi in Oman?

Shakarian: Frankly, I was actually quite surprised. It was a rather positive development because I was thinking he might be more kind of pro-Israel on this issue, but it seems to me, again, that he wants, and I would suppose the President wants, a de-escalation with Iran. And that also reflects something else, that there is this tension within this Trump administration over the NeoCon element and that element that is genuinely America First. And this is a big issue because Israel has never been more pro-war toward Iran. I mean, the current administration in Israel really is, I mean, we’re talking about fundamentalist regime in Tel Aviv that really wants to have this ultimate showdown with Iran. But imagine the catastrophe that this would lead us to: Iran is a huge country; a huge country in terms of population, a huge country in terms of area. It’s the size of Mongolia. It’s not Iraq, it’s not Syria. So if you break a country like that, it’s going to be immensely costly, and it’s going to be a catastrophe for everybody’s security.

Is that in America’s interest? Look at where the American economy is right now, look at the way in which the economy was structured to benefit the top 1% of the top 1%. In the past few decades, the economy has been rigged against the American working class. People are surprised that there is a crisis today. Well, maybe the crisis is being sped up, but the crisis was already there in the making. And my point is that a war with Iran will not help the American people or American national security at this moment…

Carden: It’s safe to say I agree with all that. Let me ask you some Russia-centric questions since you’re one of the foremost experts on Moscow’s relations with Iran. It seems Trump and Witkoff do not want a war with Iran…

Shakarian: I agree. Absolutely. I mean, Trump is extremely pro-Israel. He has his ties with Netanyahu, but he does not want a war…

Carden: …So given the recent agreement between Russia and Iran, what would Russia do in the event that Trump gets captured by the neocons and Netanyahu and launches an action against Iran?

Shakarian: We don’t really know what they’re going to necessarily do. The Russia-Iran agreement, it’s important to highlight, again, it’s not a defense pact, although it has a strong defense component in the sense that it envisions very, very deep and intensive defense technical cooperation. So it would be very disingenuous to say there’s no defensive element to it at all.

Carden: Like any EU association agreement…

Shakarian: Yes, absolutely. And also, we have to also think about it like this, that there is a clause in there that basically specifies that if one of the signatories of this agreement is attacked, then the other party will not support the aggressor, which I mean, that also is kind of a form of indirect support. I mean, you have to think of it like that. It remains to be seen what exactly Russia would do in that scenario—and same with China, by the way. It’s not just about Russia. It’s also about China.

Carden: Since you bring up China, what’s the significance of President Xi coming over to Moscow as the guest of honor for the 80th anniversary of Victory Day [VE Day] in early May?

Shakarian: I mean, it is enormous on two different levels.

Carden: Can you first just back up a second? Talk to people who will be reading this who are not overly familiar with Russian history. Explain the significance in Russia of the upcoming Victory Day celebration, and then talk about the significance of Xi.

Shakarian: So for the uninitiated, basically Russia, as the Soviet Union, won the Second World War. I hate to disabuse you of the notions of the Saving Private Ryan version of events, but that wasn’t the history. The history was that the Russians won World War II in Europe and for the Americans the main war was in the Pacific. For Russia, it was the Great Patriotic War. We’re talking about a situation where 14% of the Soviet pre-war population died in the war, in particular, the Slavic core of the Soviet Union: Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. These are the countries that suffered most, although many of the non-Slavic republics also contributed massively to the war. Armenia, I guess you could say, punched above its weight in terms of contributions to the war—but anyway, the war for the Russians is sacred. The memory of the Second World War is sacred. This was a war of survival because Hitler, in addition to killing 6 million Jews in the Holocaust was also very, very hardcore anti-Slav.

He was extremely racist against the Slavs, and, if anybody looks at Mein Kampf, they will see the idea was that Slavs are the “untermenschen (sub-humans),” that the Slavs are the “slaves,” that basically Germany “never lost the First World War.”

It was a war of survival for Russia. And so Xi’s invitation is of immense significance, especially now because this is the 80th anniversary. With each anniversary of the great patriotic war, there are fewer and fewer veterans of the war left. So this is enormous. Also, I’m here in St. Petersburg. Back then, this was Leningrad. Think about the blockade of Leningrad, right? Last year, the St. Petersburg government recognized the siege as genocide, and I mean, for the Russians, this was genocide.

And not only against the Russians. Objectively what the Germans were doing to the Slavic people was genocide. It was, like I said, a war of annihilation. So for Russia, it’s absolutely sacred, but also for China. China in the Second World War—think about what the Japanese did to the Chinese. Think about how they suffered, think about how they suffered under the Japanese, these memories are still very, very painful and sensitive for China today.

So for Xi to visit, to come to Moscow for this anniversary is immensely significant. And then in addition, you also have the significance of the present moment, which is the rise of the BRICS, the greater association of Russia and China. And this process was sped up with the war in Ukraine—that actually the war in Ukraine really put Russia and China closer together than they’ve ever been.

Carden: And it seems to have placed or created a terribly large divide that’s going to last generations, I think, between Russia and Europe. Talk about Russia’s opinions towards Europe in the aftermath of the current war…

Shakarian: Absolutely. And the Russians see this in the grand trajectory of history. It’s not just about the Second World War. It’s also about the Crimean War. I mean, going back past 1914, you can look at all the various wars that the Russians fought with various European powers. To Russia it looks like the Europeans are, again, entertaining expansionist designs against Russia or aggressive designs against Russia. What’s especially shameful, and the Russians have not missed a beat on this, has been the behavior of Germany— that Germany has become so aggressive and so gung-ho for this enterprise has the Russians stunned.

In fact, the Russians in many ways feel betrayed because it was Russia that consented for Germany to be reunified. We talk about the reunification of Germany and the fall of the Berlin wall. Well, our good friends, the French and the British, were not so thrilled about a united Germany, but the Russians who suffered more than anybody else thanks to German aggression, said, it’s OK. We should allow you to come together on the condition that NATO does not move to the East.

When it comes to the German people, I don’t think they like where the elites are taking them on this journey. Germany knows what war looks like and what the costs of war are—but I don’t believe that the United Kingdom understands this. I think the UK is especially out for war, and I think that they’re especially delusional when it comes to Russia.

And I think that that’s very dangerous…

Carden: In particular, I think the meeting of the minds between the UK and the Baltic states is one of the more dangerous developments…

Shakarian: Oh, absolutely. Especially when we look at Kaja Kallas [EU Commissioner for Foreign Affairs], she’s out of control. What’s amazing to me—we look at the wars of religion in Europe, we look at the a hundred years war, we look at World War I, we look at World War ii, and yet it seems as if Europe, just when we think Europe is turning a corner and wanting to move beyond war, we have this new kind of crusader mentality as personified by Kallas. And not only her, Mr. Starmer of the UK seems to be especially gung-ho about a war with Russia. It’s almost as if he wants to relive the Charge of the Light Brigade. He wants to go back to the days of the British Empire and the Crimean War…

Carden: I think that’s exactly the case. I was just in the UK, and everyone I spoke to said that the main reason the UK acts the way that it does with regard to the Russia-Ukraine war is because the memory of Munich looms so large there. And they all have these Churchillian fantasies…

Shakarian: …But at the end of the day if you want to really help the Ukrainians, you help them find a way to diplomacy, help them find a way to the negotiating table. Don’t help them impale themselves in this bloody imperialistic war.

In a widely neglected article for the Asia Times on April 19, 2022, I reported that,

…US involvement goes deeper than arms sales and intelligence sharing. A Pentagon official who requested anonymity told me it is “likely we have a limited footprint on the ground in Ukraine, but under Title 50, not Title 10,” meaning US intelligence operatives and paramilitaries – but not regular military.”

In the same report I quoted Bruce Fein, a former associate attorney general during the Reagan administration, who described the behavior of the US and its allies as “systematic or substantial violations of a neutral’s duties of impartiality and non-participation in the conflict.”

If nothing else, Entous’ report demonstrates the troubling extent of our co-belligerency in a war against nuclear-armed Russia, and inadvertently revealed the depths of deceit to which Joe Biden, Jake Sullivan, Lloyd Austin and Antony Blinken sunk to keep America’s involvement from public view.

Having started a war he clearly believes he was provoked* into fighting after being serially misled by France and Germany during the Minsk process (2015-2022) Russia’s Vladimir Putin is in no mood to compromise.

On March 27th, in a meeting in Murmansk with sailors from the nuclear submarine Arkhangelsk, Putin spoke about the state of the war, noting that:

We are gradually, not as quickly as some would like, but nevertheless persistently and confidently moving towards achieving all the goals declared at the beginning of this operation.

Along the entire line of combat contact, our troops have the strategic initiative. I said just recently: We will finish them off. There is reason to believe that we will finish them off.

Later on, Putin broached the idea of a new government in Ukraine “within the framework of the United Nations peacekeeping operations.”

“In principle,” he continued, “it would indeed be possible to discuss, under UN auspices with the United States and even European countries – and certainly with our partners and allies – the possibility of establishing a temporary administration in Ukraine.”

In Putin’s view, the Zelensky regime is, thanks to its ties, and indeed reliance on, avowedly neo-Nazi militias within the country, unable and unwilling to act as a serious interlocutor on talks to end the war. As has been widely reported, Putin’s recent comments about Zelensky have angered Donald Trump.

Another sign that the Russians are in this for the long haul is their ongoing effort to strengthen their partnership with China. Today, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and assistant foreign minister Liu Bin met with Putin, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and presidential aide Yury Ushakov in Moscow. Among other things, it was confirmed that Chinese president Xi Jinping will meet next month with Putin in Moscow to mark Victory Day, the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

In comments that ought to worry both Zelensky and Trump, Wang told the Russian media outlet RIA Novosti that while he viewed Trump’s push to end the war as “worth taking” he added that peace, in his view, was still “far away” and that “the causes of the crisis are extremely complex.”

He continued,

…We advocate eradicating the causes of the crisis through dialogue and negotiations, and ultimately achieving a fair, long-term, binding peace agreement acceptable to all parties involved.”

Trump’s dreams of a Nobel Prize will collide with a number of factors including China’s support for Russia; Putin’s view of Zelensky as illegitimate; and, not least, the reality on the ground—a reality that is starkly at odds with jejune narratives crafted by the Pentagon (then laundered through the New York Times) which claim Russia has lost upwards of 700,000 men and its economy is teetering on the precipice of catastrophe.

No evidence exists for such claims: In 2024, Russia’s economy grew by 4.1 percent, the EU’s economy grew by 1 percent; a realistic discussion about casualty rates can be found here.

In the end, Russia is winning the war and Putin’s demand for regime change in Kiev is one which Trump might accede to if he wants the fighting to end any time soon. If and when an honest account of this period is written, Zelensky will emerge not as the Churchill of his time but as Eastern Europe’s Diem; a vain leader held hostage to forces at home and abroad over which he has little control.

Notes:

* On numerous occasions in the lead up to the invasion, Putin spoke about the clear and present danger growing on Russia’s border with Ukraine, see: Geoffery Roberts’ classic ‘Now or Never’: Putin’s Decision for War with Ukraine, link here: https://jmss.org/article/view/76584/56335?s=03

James W. Carden is editor of TRR and a contributing editor at The American Conservative.

It was the last major battle during the 2014–2015 phase of the war in Donbas, as the Minsk II ceasefire took effect on 15 February 2015, although fighting continued in Debaltseve for several days after.

Vladimir Putin’s June 2024 terms to start negotiations remain intact:

1. Ukraine must withdraw its troops from the territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, which Russia has annexed
2. Ukraine must formally renounce its intention to join NATO
3. Ukraine must accept the loss of Crimea and parts of Donbas
4. Ukraine must undergo “de-militarization,” which implies drastic disarmament
5. Ukraine must agree to “de-Nazification,” suggesting potential regime change and restrictions on expressing Ukrainian national identity
6. Ukraine must legally guarantee the rights and interests of “Russian-speaking citizens” in the remaining parts of Ukraine

I think the US delegation is in for a rude awakening when they discover that Russia is not likely to compromise on any of these points in light of being scammed under the Minsk II agreement.

But the US has another agenda in mind in trying to reach a deal with Russia — it wants to split Russia from China so that it can focus on the Chinese threat. To this end, the Trump administration is proposing a massive new sale of weapons to Taiwan and is erasing the One China policy. I doubt that Russia has any interest in playing the US game…

Larry C Johnson is a Managing Partner of BERG Associates, former CIA Officer and State Department Counter Terrorism official.

China, a leading nation in the BRICS and the Global South, has chosen in practice, not to follow insanity of the West led campaign for deindustrialization. The same political-financial elites endangering the world with their diseased rules-based-order, which insists, by force, if necessary, that the United States must remain the dominant hegemon of the world, are also behind the myth of anthropogenic climate change. Their intentionally misleading assumption, that the industrialization of our civilization, which has led to phenomenal rates of economic growth for humankind, is threatening our planet today. Economic progress, the cause of society’s ability to support billions of people, is now alleged to be criminal. This is a direct assault on what makes the human species, human: our creativity. Humans are the only species endowed with a creative imagination. We homo-sapiens-sapiens are the only living species endowed with ability to discover new scientific principles embedded in the physical universe, which generate technological revolutions. This is properly understood as human progress. No animal, not even our charmingly cute panda bears, possess this quality.

Reject Zero-Growthism

At the core, the so called environmentalist ideology is a hatred of human beings. The foundation of this anti-human perverted view stems from three false axioms: 1) Our planet is a collection of fixed resources. This is not even remotely true, proven by the economies of today utilizing resources, critical minerals, that we previously did not know existed; 2) There is no growth in our universe; 3) Humankind, in its greedy behavior of using up our planet’s “fixed resources” is driving civilization towards its eventual doom. These axioms parallel the pseudo-scientific theory, which stipulates that physical universe, driven by an irreversible entropic process, will culminate in a final state incapable of further development. According to the second law of thermo-dynamics, through the inexorable degeneration-disorganization of energy, our universe will wind-down, until reaching the ultimate state of disorder, deprived of usable energy. This zero-growth belief is the bedrock from which all the dogma postulated by the green-environmentalist movement emanates.

Neither zero-growth ideologies, nor entropy, govern our universe, especially the creative powers of the human mind. The history of the progress of civilization debunks these allegations. The physical universe is anti-entropic, organized to respond to human-noetic interventions by advancing to the next higher plateau of development. The physical universe and the human species were created to generate continuous development, overcoming all so called limits to growth.

Civilization has never had a resource shortage. We advanced from a wood based energy economy, to the exploitation of coal as a new resource, then oil and gas, to uranium based fission energy (still underutilized) to the potential of a fusion powered economy. This long wave of attaining higher levels of energy thruput and energy flux-density, through scientific discovery, and inventing new technologies for new resources, is what we know as: human progress.

Anti-Human Axiom

We humans are transformers of the earth, contrary to the notion that the behavior of human society will harm the planet, as well as the less noxious view that humans are simply caretakers of the earth. In the words of the great German Philosopher, Gottfried Leibniz, there is a pre-established harmony between the noetic powers of the human mind and the physical universe in which we exist. There is no pristine or equilibrium state of nature; only development or lack of development for the human species. To accentuate this concept beyond any misunderstanding: human beings, endowed with the principle of creativity, are in harmony with the developing physical universe.

Parsons Thomas Malthus, patron of the East India Company, a branch of the British oligarchy, espoused the unscientific theory that populations grew at a geometric rate and agricultural production increased only arithmetically. Thus, the deviant insisted, it was necessary to reduce the growth rate of the population. He proposed implementing this downright silly-unproven nonsense, by targeting poor people. He wrote the following in his 1798 book, An Essay on the Principle of Population:

Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into houses, and court the return of the plague.

Whether modern day zero-growthers admit it or not, they are hard core neo-Malthusians. They imbibe with gusto, the erroneous belief that people must be eliminated because human beings are incapable of producing resources for their existence. This baseless axiom forms the underpinning of green-environmentalism and deindustrialization today. In essence, denying scientific progress.

The World Wildlife Fund, now the Worldwide Fund for Nature, the granddaddy of the green-environmental movement, was imbued with neo-Malthusianism in its creation. It was founded in 1961 by Sir Julian Huxley, President of the Eugenics Society of Great Britain, Prince Bernhard, a former card carrying member of the Nazi Party, and Prince Phillip, who represented the highest echelon of the British Oligarchy. The now deceased Philip was known for his fanatical antihuman view. He is quoted in 1988, In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus to contribute something to solving overpopulation.

Contrary to the belief of the followers “woke culture” of today, that they initiated the movement for zero population growth, the roots of this anti-human view of society were created for them hundreds of years earlier. They fail to realize that they are just Malthus’ donkeys mindlessly braying his evil ideology.

Mathew Ehret exposes the diametrically opposed pro-progress outlook of China and the BRICS, to the deindustrialization policies of the West in his essay: China-BRICS Choose Development. (See excerpt below)

USA vs. China Energy Paradigms

In the USA, overall national energy production has not only stagnated, but has actually fallen from 26,545 Terawatt hours (TWh) in 2000 to 25,825 TWh in 2021, with an increased slide projected into the coming decades by those same forces who 1) sabotaged America’s advanced energy policies over the past decades and 2) wish to induce energy scarcity onto a frightened populous in order to justify a culling of humanity to “sustainable levels”.

In contrast, China has used this same 21-year interval very differently, increasing its annual energy use from 12,470 TWh in 2000 to 43,791 TWh in 2021.

The effects upon quality of life, per capita powers of labor, energy security, food production and educational opportunities have increased dramatically.

The one child limit (imposed by Kissinger and the Club of Rome 40 years ago) has been abolished, and average longevity, which was once led by the USA has been overtaken by China, which has lifted the average life expectancy from 44 years in 1963 to 77. 5 years today, and stands in stark contrast to the USA, whose average life expectance fell to only 76.1 years of age as of September 2022.

China’s purchasing power parity has also superseded that of the USA over the past few years.

How Smart Is Trump?

It is too early to know if President Trump will continue to attack China and the BRICS, becoming a stooge of the China bashing rules-based order. He has already threatened BRICS twice, an institution of over twenty nations, which is the point of the spear for the Global South. The BRICS bloc, (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia, and the UAE), has a total population of around 3.3 billion, over 40% of the global population. BRICS countries account for approximately 46% of global GDP.

President Trump foolishly slapped sanctions on China within his first two weeks in office, and recently made accusations against South Africa, a leading member of the BRICS. There is no inherent conflict between the genuine self-interest of nations. The conflict emanates from the ravenous desire by Western political-financial oligarchy for supremacy. There is no objective reason that all nations cannot collaborate in fulfilling the common aim of humankind: the peaceful development of all nations.

If President Trump is as smart as he proclaims to be, then he would understand that to make America great, we must make the World great.

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, and consultant on Africa. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, and also publishing on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump said he had reached out to President Xi Jinping during a phone call and described China as having “a great deal of power over that situation”.

There is a grain of black humour when the man who vowed to end the war within 24 hours asks China to step in. However, Trump didn’t even need to ask. A year after Russia invaded, China proposed a 12-point peace plan.

Last year, Beijing in collaboration with Brazil also launched the Group of Friends for Peace on the Ukraine Crisis, which includes several other nations. However, these efforts haven’t been successful. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky even called the China-Brazil peace initiative “destructive”.

Beijing cannot help single-handedly. At a time when Moscow and Kyiv believe they must keep fighting, no outside proposals will work. Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to take back Kursk and have full control of four Ukrainian regions while Zelensky is bent on joining Nato even at the cost of losing some territory.

Can China and the US work together to end the war in Ukraine? The answer is yes. To do so, they should take the lead on a plan where major powers offer a collective security guarantee.

A collective security guarantee is indelible in the memory of Ukrainians. In the 1990s, states with nuclear weapons – the US, Russia, Britain and France – provided such an assurance to Ukraine in exchange for Kyiv returning Soviet-era nuclear weapons to Russia. And, in 2013, China pledged not to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine and to provide security assurances in the event of aggression, or the threat of aggression, against Ukraine using nuclear weapons.

Now, facing the largest nuclear power in the world, Ukraine fears that any ceasefire may not be durable. In March 2022, Zelensky said Ukraine must have a collective security agreement with all its neighbours and the participation of the world’s leading powers.

Russia also needs a collective security guarantee. It most certainly doesn’t want to look isolated vis-a-vis a Western security defence of Ukraine. At the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok last year, Putin described Brazil, China and India as trusted partners who could act as intermediaries in possible negotiations with Ukraine. Putin has also repeatedly thanked China for its “balanced position” on the conflict.

Trump is a self-proclaimed deal maker. However, in any deal between the US and Russia, Putin ultimately holds the trump card. Russia outguns and outnumbers Ukraine. It arguably has the upper hand on the battlefield.

However, Trump does have a unique advantage. As president of the country sending the most weapons to Ukraine, he can use his leverage on both parties. If Russia doesn’t meet his conditions, he can provide more weapons to Ukraine to keep fighting. If Ukraine doesn’t agree to a deal, he can reduce or even threaten to stop military aid.

Trump has called for an immediate ceasefire followed by negotiations. This is putting the cart before the horse since a ceasefire is seldom, if ever, agreed on without negotiations. Worse still, when negotiations fail, war might break out again.

What conditions could guarantee a ceasefire and what would be the terms of the agreement? Furthermore, if an armistice came after a ceasefire, as widely anticipated, where would the demarcation lines lie?

Amid a grinding stalemate, there are no clear answers to these questions yet. For Ukraine, a ceasefire along the current lines of combat would mean losing nearly 20 per cent of its territory and tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians, only to be kept outside Nato, a military alliance perceived by the country’s leadership as the only trustworthy security guarantee.

Meanwhile, Russia fears not only potentially losing four annexed Ukrainian regions, but also Kursk, an indisputable part of Russian territory. However, any solution invariably relies on the mediation of major powers and the promise of collective security guarantees.

Another prospect would be a peacekeeping initiative. In dialogue with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron proposed a European peacekeeping mission composed of troops from Nato countries to ensure Moscow adheres to a potential ceasefire. Most recently, in Davos, Zelensky called for Europe to send at least 200,000 soldiers as peacekeepers.

This is a fool’s errand. Russia will most certainly take this to be a manifestation of Nato’s presence in Ukraine. Isn’t Nato’s expansion into Ukraine one of the stated reasons Putin gave for launching the war? If a peacekeeping mission is needed, it would be best to select troops from countries that are neutral, rather than from European countries.

There are now only 11 UN peacekeeping missions deployed around the world compared with 16 during the early days of Trump’s first term. So there is more than enough manpower for global peacekeeping. In this regard, countries such as China – the largest contributor of troops among the five permanent UN Security Council members – would be more acceptable.

In the fog of war, we only know what late US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld described as a “known unknown”, which means we know something exists that we don’t know. No one knows how long this war will last but it is good that a unilateralist American president knows now that he needs help.

Senior Colonel Zhou Bo (ret) is a senior fellow of the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University and a China Forum expert. He was director of Centre for Security Cooperation of the Office for International Military Cooperation of the Ministry of National Defence of China.

The Chinese spokesperson Mao Ning kept the expectations low by  adding that “Behind this, there is only one goal that China hopes to achieve, that is, to build consensus for ending the conflict and pave the way for peace talks. China will continue to play its role, carry out shuttle diplomacy, pool consensus and contribute China’s wisdom for the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis.” 

Macron spoke up after a summit of European leaders in Paris on Monday. But in diplomacy, there is always something more than what meets the eye. Macron later insisted that he had spoken quite deliberately: “These are rather serious topics. My every word on this issue is weighted, thought through and calculated.” Nonetheless, representatives of most of the 20 participating countries at the Paris conclave, especially Germany, later took a public position that they had no intention to send troops to Ukraine and were strongly opposed to participation in military operations against Russia. 

The French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne since explained that the presence of Western military in Ukraine might be necessary to provide some types of assistance, including de-mining operations and instruction of Ukrainian soldiers, but that did not imply their participation in the conflict. 

The White House reaction has been a reaffirmation that the US would not send troops to Ukraine. The National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement that Biden “has been clear that the US will not send troops to fight in Ukraine.” The NSC spokesman John Kirby also denied that US troops could be sent for de-mining, arms production or cyber operations. However, Kirby underscored that it would be a “sovereign decision” for France or any other NATO country whether to send troops to Ukraine. 

Interestingly, though, two days after the White House reacted, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin added a caveat during a hearing at the House Armed Services Committee that if Ukraine falls, Russia and NATO could come into a direct military conflict, as the Russian leadership “won’t stop there” if Ukraine is defeated. “Quite frankly, if Ukraine falls, I really believe that NATO will be in a fight with Russia,” Austin said. 

What emerges out of this cacophony is that quite possibly, the ground is being prepared for a soft landing for the idea of western military deployment in Ukraine in some form going forward. Within hours of Austin’s testimony on Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on the Telegram channel, “Is this an overt threat to Russia or an attempt to cook up an excuse for Zelensky? Both are insane. However, everyone can see who the aggressor is — it is Washington.” 

The NATO has been steadily climbing the escalation ladder while the Russian reaction has been by and large to rev up the “meat grinder” in the war of attrition. But then, it is the Ukrainian carcass being ground and that doesn’t seem to matter to the Brits or Americans. 

There was a time when attack on Crimea was deemed to have been a “red line.” Then came the October 2022 Crimean Bridge explosion — on the day after the 70th birthday of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Well, Russia successfully repaired the bridge and reopened it to traffic. An emboldened West thereupon began a string of attacks against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. 

Russia repeatedly alleged that the British, along with the US, acted as spotters, supplying the Kiev regime with coordinates of targets and that the attacks against the Black Sea Fleet were actually literally conducted under the direction of British special services. The Russian MFA spokesperson Maria Zakharova said yesterday, “In general, the question that should be asked is not about Britain’s involvement in separate episodes of the conflict in Ukraine, but about the unleashing and participation of London in the anti-Russian hybrid war.” Indeed, recent reports mentioned that none other than the UK’s Chief of the Defense Staff Admiral Tony Radakin played a significant role in developing Ukraine’s military strategy in the Black Sea. 

In retrospect, a NATO roadmap exists to bring the war home to Russia, the latest phase being a new air strike campaign against the Russian oil and gas industry. The escalation on such scale and sophistication is possible only with the direct or indirect participation of NATO personnel and real-time intelligence provided by the US satellites or ground stations. Equally, there is no more any taboo about what Ukraine can do with the weapons the NATO countries have provided. 

Lately, the CIA began to brazenly speak about all that, too. The New York Times featured an exclusive news article Monday that a CIA—supported network of spy bases constructed in the past eight years going back to the coup in Kiev in 2014, that includes 12 secret locations along the Russian border. 

Suffice to say, while on the diplomatic track, Russia’s repeated attempts to halt the fighting have been ignored by the West — the Istanbul negotiations in late March 2022; Putin’s proposal for a freeze on frontline movements and a ceasefire as early as autumn 2022, and then again in September 2023 — the CIA and Pentagon have been working hard to achieve victory at all costs.

Even after September 2023, Putin signalled willingness to freeze the current frontline and move to a ceasefire and even communicated this through a number of channels, including through foreign governments that have good relations with both Russia and the US. But the faction that wants to crush Russia militarily at all costs has prevailed. Austin’s remark on Friday suggests that this passion seems to be impervious to facts on the ground.

Make no mistake, on February 24, Canada and Italy joined the UK, Germany, France and Denmark to sign 10-year security agreements with Kiev. These agreements underscore a collective commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and its aspirations to join the NATO military alliance, implying that their aim is a long-term confrontation with Russia. And Europe is now discussing the deployment of boots on the ground in Ukraine.

In this foreboding backdrop, what is it that Li Hui can hope to achieve as he meets up with the deputy head of the department Mikhail Galuzin, a middle ranking Russian diplomat in the foreign ministry, on March 3? Succinctly put, while China’s interest in resolving the Ukrainian crisis is not in doubt, Li Hui’s “shuttle diplomacy” can only be seen as an effort to understand the current positions of the parties, as the situation has changed since May 2023 when he last touched base — and the fact remains that there are active discussions about further steps regarding the conflict in the West after the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive. 

Conceivably, this upgrade of the opinions of the parties will enable Beijing to make decisions about its actions. A potential Europe trip by President Xi Jinping is also being talked about that may include France. 

China is painstakingly rebuilding trust with the European powers and both sides eye pragmatic cooperation despite geopolitical frictions. China remains intrigued by Macron’s advocacy of Europe’s “strategic autonomy.” Meanwhile, the spectre of Donald Trump haunts both Europe and China, which, hopefully, may boost the latter’s chances at winning Europe’s trust. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed his “strong personal friendship” with his Russian counterpart as the two leaders met in Beijing on the margins of China’s global infrastructure forum.

The BRI is at the core of Xi’s foreign policy and is intimately tied up with Putin’s Eurasia Economic Union (EUU), which has become core to Russia’s foreign relations and was explicitly laid out in Russia’s latest foreign policy concept earlier this year.

Despite recent efforts by the West to re-engage with Beijing, which has strong business ties to Germany and several other Western countries, Xi highlighted the “close and effective strategic coordination” with Russia.

“We are moving very confidently bilaterally,” said Putin, who was reportedly in a very good mood, pointing particularly to flourishing bilateral trade as China helps Russia to circumnavigate Western sanctions and buys its surplus oil and gas.

All of the Central Asian presidents were there. They increasingly travel as the “C5” pack and have recently been in the US, China, Russia and Berlin as a group. Most of the senior Asian leaders also attended, as did several African leaders – a total of 130 countries were represented.

However, the delegates were almost exclusively from emerging markets, including all the G20 members and the newly extended BRICS+ group. The only leaders from Europe were Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Serbian President Aleksander Vucic.

The confab highlights the growing divided between the West and the global south that is emerging in this fractured world and driven by the ideological disagreement over creating a unipolar world vs a multipolar one.

Xi and Putin

Putin arrived with a large business delegation, including Russia’s top banks and energy companies as well as half his cabinet. Economic ties are flourishing between Russia and China as sanctions have forced the Kremlin to abandon its long-standing commercial relations with Europe and turn to the East for new partners.

Xi and Putin met but notably did not mention in public the conflict that erupted in the Middle East on October 7 when Hamas stormed southern Israel, murdering some 1,400 people on a prolonged rampage of terror attacks and taking some 150 hostage.

The Kremlin called an emergency United Nations meeting to propose a peace plan to bring the fighting to an end, but it failed to pass after G7 members, including the UK, the US, France and Japan, voted against it.

China has been even more reserved with observers saying Beijing has not mentioned the world “Hamas” once since the shooting started a week and a half ago.

But both leaders must be relishing the crisis, which plays directly into Putin’s hands and will improve both their positions in the global south in general and in the Middle East in particular. Both countries are keen to present themselves as the two biggest emerging markets that have the clout to represent the interests of the multipolar world to the existing hegemony dominated by the G7+ countries of the West.

And some in the West remain attracted to Russia by its mineral wealth and copious energy supplies. Vucic has been playing both sides of the fence, cutting lucrative gas supply deals for Serbia and refusing to implement sanctions. The Serbian president was even learning Russian in his spare time and is a regular visitor to Moscow.

Orban has been even closer to Putin as Hungary is equally dependent on Russian energy and commodities. Following Donald Tusk’s epic victory in the Polish elections on October 15, Orban finds himself very isolated in Europe and naturally will look to Russia and China for support. Poland’s new Prime Minister-in-waiting is seen as much closer to the EU as Tusk is the former President of the European Council (from 2014 to 2019), whereas Brussels had to blackmail Orban in the recent votes for more aid to Ukraine by withholding €13bn in post-COVID relief grants.

During a conversation with Putin – his first meeting with an EU leader since Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer made a controversial trip to Moscow last April to buy gas – the Hungarian Prime Minister referred to Russia’s war against Ukraine using the Kremlin’s preferred moniker of a “military operation.” Orban regularly makes anti-Ukrainian statements and has said that Kyiv has missed its opportunity to join Nato as well as calling for the financial aid to Ukraine to be halved.

Orban also met with Xi, who told Orban he was a “friend” to Hungary and that both sides should “elevate” their relations. Beijing has been investing in factories in Central Europe with a particular emphasis on production related to EVs.

“We consider you as a friend,” Xi told Orban as cited by Reuters. “You have actively supported jointly building the Belt and Road and made contributions to promoting high-quality development of the Belt and Road cooperation.”

Orban was obviously well pleased with Xi’s bonhomie.

“Connectivity instead of decoupling: this is the Hungarian model. Our aim is to strengthen Hungarian-Chinese relations,” Orban wrote on X following the meeting. “This is good for Hungary and good for the European economy.”

Down to business

On Putin’s second trip abroad since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against the Russian leader in March for kidnapping Ukrainian children, he was reportedly in an ebullient mood.

Vucic met with Putin in Beijing where they had a “brief” conversation.

“I have met with President Putin and we talked briefly, there was no bilateral meeting,” he told local journalists, adding that Putin looked “very confident”.

As bne IntelliNews has reported, Putin is attempting with Xi to build a BRICS bloc and the BRI event was attended by his core target market.

Xi was on hand to burnish Putin’s image. Xi was in Moscow in March in an ostentatious show of support for the embattled Russia following the imposition of sanctions and a clear challenge to the US claim to be the leaders of the free world.

At the heart of the Russo-Chinese cooperation is the Treaty on Good Neighbourliness, Friendship, and Cooperation signed in 2001, which is the basis of their trade and economic collaboration and emphasizes a comprehensive, equal, and strategic partnership.

Trade between the two countries has been flourishing, and more recently was catalysed by the sanctions imposed on Russia. Trade turnover was 29.3% in 2022 y/y reaching $190.27bn. This year trade soared 30% in the first half of this year and will breach $200bn for the first time in 2023, according to Russian Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov who is also in the delegation.

Russia is now China’s second-largest trade partner outside of Asia, second only to the United States, which accounted for half a trillion in trade in the first nine months of this year, followed by Russia with $176bn and Germany with $158bn.

Increasingly this trade is settled in national currencies and since Russia was banned from SWIFT there has been a rapid yuanization of the Russian financial system.

Russia primarily exports energy resources, metals, timber, agricultural products, and seafood to China, while China imports cars, electronics, excavators, microprocessors, clothing, shoes, and consumer goods from Russia.

The Sino-Russian investment fund is supervised by a dedicated intergovernmental commission and currently has 79 large-scale projects with total investments of approximately $170bn, reports Tass.

Russia is a significant supplier of oil and gas to China. The Power of Siberia gas pipeline has been transporting gas since 2019, and a Power of Siberia-2 is expected to appear in the next ten years followed by a Power of Siberia-3.

The heads of Russian energy giants Gazprom and Rosneft, Alexei Miller and Igor Sechin, are both part of Putin’s retinue during his visit to China.

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) production projects, including Yamal LNG and Arctic LNG-2, involve Chinese investors, and Russia exported 6.5mn tonnes of LNG to China in 2022, a 44% increase from the previous year.

Russia has a reputation as a technological noob, but some its military technology is world class, as a legacy of the Cold War. Russia remains a major arms exporter to China and Russian aviation, rocket, nuclear, and even submarine technology has been shared with China in the last decade, according to a 2022 assessment by the US Department of Defence.

Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) 

The BRI is not just an Asian project but extends well into Europe and also has major investments into raw material production in Africa as well as increasingly into infrastructure as a way of cementing relations with Beijing.

The BRI connects more than 60 countries in Europe with the global south. The concept was developed by Xi in 2013 and is the backbone of China’s foreign economic and foreign policy and expected to run over the next three decades.

The initiative includes several projects. First of all, these are the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. These projects, proposed by Xi Jinping in 2013, named after the ancient caravan route that runs through Central Asia. The maritime route connects the coastal regions of China with Southeast and South Asia, the Middle East, East Africa and Europe, as well as the countries of the South Pacific.

In 2015, the Digital Silk Road project was added, stimulating the development of digital interconnectedness of the countries participating in the initiative: laying fibre optic cables and 5G cellular networks, creating data storage centres, using satellite navigation, and developing e-commerce.

In 2018, China initiated the Polar Silk Road project, which involves coordinating development strategies with Arctic states to facilitate the creation of a maritime economic corridor between China and Europe across the Arctic Ocean.

The projects are financed by the Chinese sovereign wealth fund and state-owned banks, including the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China as well as the Silk Road Fund created in 2014. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) are also major players.

China builds interaction with its partners on a bilateral basis. To date, under the initiative, the Chinese side has concluded agreements with 150 countries and 30 international organizations. The initiative’s projects are being implemented in countries of Eurasia, Africa, Latin America, and Western Europe, covering two-thirds of all countries and more than 60% of the world’s population.

Russia is not directly involved in the initiative, but supports it. In 2015, the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China signed an agreement to connect the Silk Road Economic Belt and the EEU, which has Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia as members.

For the period from 2013 to 2022, trade turnover between China and BRI participants was $19.1 trillion, with average annual growth of 6.4%. The total volume of investments exceeded $380bn, including China’s direct investments to participating countries to the tune of more than $240bn.

In the first half of 2023 alone, trade turnover between China and BRI countries grew by 9.8% y/y. The share of this indicator in China’s foreign trade turnover reached 34.3%. More than 3,000 projects with an investment volume of almost $1 trillion have already been implemented through the initiative.

Preventing both contingencies is critical both to America’s own security and to our commitments to Israel. And our ability to do so depends to a significant degree on help from China and Russia in restraining their partners in the region in return for Israeli restraint in Gaza.

The most likely path toward these twin dangers would be a full-scale Israeli ground invasion of Gaza, for which Hamas is almost certainly prepared and which it may well have intended to provoke. Such an invasion would inevitably involve prolonged urban combat and massive civilian casualties. This would lead to widespread outrage in the region that could compel a military response from Hezbollah, which in turn would create enormous pressures on Iran to support its Lebanese partner.

A northern front between Israel and an Iran-backed Hezbollah could also quite possibly expand into Syria, which in turn could drag Russia and even Turkey directly into the fighting. None of these actors is seeking direct combat with Israel — the Hamas attacks reportedly took Iran by surprise, Russia already is completely consumed by its war in Ukraine, and Turkey would lose the leverage it enjoys through tacking between the United States, Europe, Russia, and regional players to its south. Nonetheless, circumstances could compel these states to face choices they would rather avoid.

Between China and Russia, Beijing’s help will be easier to enlist. China has the most to lose from a wider conflict in the region, which could threaten access to the region’s oil supplies, drive up energy prices, and undermine the global commerce on which China’s economy depends. It also has much to gain from working with the United States to contain the crisis and stabilize the region, which would bolster Beijing’s prestige on the world stage and potentially mitigate America’s reflexive fears that China intends to destabilize the international order.

For these reasons, Washington will be reluctant to bless a prominent role for China in the region; but China is already playing such a role regardless of U.S. wishes, as its facilitation of Saudi-Iranian rapprochement has demonstrated. Successful cooperation with China in the Middle East would mark a return to previous U.S. statements that Washington hopes that Beijing will become a “responsible stakeholder” and not an enemy on the world stage.

Russia is the more important, but also the more difficult nut to crack. More important, because Russia has good relations with both Israel and Iran and has fought beside Hezbollah in Syria; more difficult, because of the immense distrust and hostility that was building up between Washington and Moscow long before the Russian invasion of Ukraine plunged relations into the abyss. Given deep U.S.-Russian enmity over the war in Ukraine, there are obviously strong temptations for Russia to cause trouble for America and exploit international anger over Israeli retaliation in Gaza to bolster its ties to Iran, Arab states, and the wider Global South at U.S. expense.

Fortunately, Moscow also has reasons to worry about a deepening conflict in the region. Russia has since the end of the Cold War sought to maintain good relations with Israel, an important economic partner and the adoptive home of more than a million Russian emigres. It has not reacted when Israel has attacked Hezbollah forces or Syrian targets over the past several years, despite Russia’s key role as a partner of Hezbollah and the Baath state in Syria. A war between Israel and Iran would end Iranian supplies to Russia of drones that have come to play an important role in the Russian campaign in Ukraine.

Above all, Russia has long been concerned about the dangers of Sunni Islamic terrorism, the source of numerous attacks inside Russia, which is likely to flow from the burgeoning conflict in Gaza. In the wake of 9/11, there was a very strong sense in Moscow of common interests with the U.S. in the fight against terrorism. This perception of common threat meant that Western policy in Libya and Syria was greeted in Russia not just with fury but also with bewilderment.

Faced with the obvious danger of Islamist extremism and the dreadful example of the war in Iraq, Russian analysts could not understand how the West could embark on policies that were likely to destroy the Libyan and Syrian states (and did, in the case of Libya) and create great opportunities for the spread of jihadi forces.

A restoration of at least limited cooperation with Russia in counter-terrorism is both one path to an eventual wider settlement and urgently necessary for its own sake; because the present conflict is certain to increase the terrorist threat to the West. In Europe, terrorist attacks have already begun. The U.S. also needs to renew talks with Russia on the future of Syria, since the U.S. strategy of overthrowing the Baath regime has long since collapsed.

Channeling these conflicting impulses into Russian cooperation in containing the dangers of escalation over Gaza will be no easy task. It will require opening a high-level channel of communication between senior Biden administration officials and the Kremlin to discuss the crisis, coupled with an implicit signal that Washington is willing to address some concrete Russian concerns about the U.S. military’s role in Syria and about the need for rekindling Israel-Palestine diplomacy. Our chances of gaining Russian cooperation would improve if the United States and China begin serious talks about managing the Gaza crisis, as Putin will not want to cede the international stage to Beijing.

Neither Russia nor China have enough coercive leverage to prevent Hezbollah from opening a northern front with Israel — and precipitating a cascade of further escalation — should the Israeli Defense Forces mount a full-scale invasion of Gaza. But they probably have sufficient clout to ensure Hamas’s backers stay out of the fray in return for some measure of Israeli restraint, particularly if the United States is willing to back renewed Israel-Palestinian negotiations, open talks with Moscow about Syria, and share the international stage in managing the crisis.

By contrast, stiff-arming Chinese and Russian involvement would only incentivize their opposition to U.S. policies. And if there’s one thing Washington does not need in this crisis, it is yet more parties intent on exploiting instability.

George Beebe spent more than two decades in government as an intelligence analyst, diplomat, and policy advisor, including as director of the CIA’s Russia analysis and as a staff advisor on Russia matters to Vice President Cheney. His book, The Russia Trap: How Our Shadow War with Russia Could Spiral into Nuclear Catastrophe (2019), warned how the United States and Russia could stumble into a dangerous military confrontation much like the situation we face over Ukraine today.

The meeting between the two presidents will inevitably be overshadowed by Israel’s conflict with the Gaza-based militant group Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the US and the European Union. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged China at the weekend to use its friendly ties with Iran — which supports Hamas — and broader influence in the Middle East to prevent the conflict from escalating. The pressure on Xi, and indirectly Putin, who is also close to Tehran, to act over the crisis is likely to intensify.

For now, the two leaders are expected to focus on their growing relationship. Russia’s reliance on China has reached into every facet of its economy in the 20 months since the invasion of Ukraine. With the West severing trade ties, China’s exports to Russia have jumped 57% so far this year. The yuan accounted for almost half of the value of all foreign exchange trading in Moscow in September — up from just 0.4% in January 2022, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Economics. China is now the largest importer of fossil fuels from Russia, with coal shipments more than doubling since 2020.

The Russian leader’s attendance at Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative Forum, which opened on Tuesday, comes on his first trip abroad — aside from visiting former Soviet states — since the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against him in March for alleged war crimes in Ukraine. The visit will allow Russia to cement this critical economic support and apply pressure on Beijing to sign agreements on a new gas pipeline.

For his part, Xi is seeking a reliable Russia to be a powerful partner in building his vision of an alternative world order. One based on an age-old mutual distrust of the West — especially the US and its military allies — and a desire to reinforce its own position on the island of Taiwan, which it views as a breakaway province, but which Washington has committed to support.

Putin is a key part of that. Indeed, if China were to invade Taiwan — a prospect that is unlikely anytime soon — Russia could prove crucial in ensuring supplies of food and fuel and potentially providing political cover at the United Nations Security Council.

But there is disquiet among some experts and academics in Beijing who think China is getting little from the relationship beyond a new market for some of its cars, televisions and smartphones and knock-down prices for Russian oil and gas. This has led to questions over whether Beijing has gambled too much on the Russian leader.

“I think Putin is not an ideal partner for Xi Jinping — he hoped for much more,” said Jakub Jakobowski, deputy director at the Centre for Eastern Studies in Warsaw. “He’s increasingly a burden for Xi internally for those parts of the Chinese elite that don’t want to subscribe to this big affair that Russia has started.”

Xi is looking to strike a balance, which has become more difficult the longer the conflict has dragged on. He hasn’t provided any major military aid to Russia that would provoke US sanctions against China, and he’s warned against both the use of nuclear weapons and attacks on civilians. Unlike Putin, who is treated as a pariah by the West, Xi wants a stable relationship with the US and appears likely to meet President Joe Biden in November. But his refusal to explicitly condemn the invasion has undermined Beijing’s claim to neutrality and reinforced skepticism among some Group of Seven countries of its 12-point peace proposal to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The Chinese leader’s peace push did win him some credibility among emerging economies like Brazil. Indeed, he spent the early part of the year trying to act as a global peacemaker helping long-time rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran reach a diplomatic truce. He later proposed an Israel-Palestine peace conference, which is why he is now being urged to take a role in calming the conflict with Hamas. Beijing has called for a cease-fire, but beyond that its influence is unclear. For Putin, the conflict could be useful if it means Western powers and public attention are distracted away from the fighting in Ukraine.

Xi has more immediate worries at home. An economic slowdown raises the potential for more social unrest. Both the foreign and defense ministers appear to have been ousted in recent months, and there has been an overhaul of the generals responsible for China’s Rocket Force, which manages the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

The US is tightening export curbs on advanced technology, the EU is probing China’s electric vehicle subsidies and some Asian neighbors have ramped up military spending amid a rise in tensions over Taiwan. The EU’s chief trade negotiator, Valdis Dombrovskis, has warned that China’s stance on Ukraine is hurting the appetite of businesses to invest in the world’s second-biggest economy.

Beijing is “wary that as long as people continue to put China and Russia in the same category, they will actually burn the bridge to Europe, the US and others,” said Ngeow Chow Bing, director of the Institute of China Studies at the University of Malaya, who has written extensively on Chinese politics. “China wants to present itself as someone that both sides can rely on.”

Putin was the first foreign leader that Xi visited after he became China’s president in 2013. And over the past decade the two have often been described as having a close relationship, despite not sharing a common language. In 2019 they celebrated Xi’s birthday together in Tajikistan: Putin gave the Chinese leader a gift of a box of ice cream popsicles. The two presidents — who have both changed their country’s rules to allow them the opportunity to extend their time in power — last met in Moscow in March, just days after the ICC issued its arrest warrant against Putin. In an interview broadcast on Russian TV on Monday, Putin said of his relationship with Xi: “If we agree on something, we can be sure that both sides will keep their end of the bargain.”

Yet, there also exists, said a Europe-based diplomat, an element of sibling rivalry in the dynamic between the two leaders, a nod to a time when the Soviet Union was regarded as the “big brother” in the relationship. That is no longer the case.

Relations between the countries have often been strained — sometimes openly hostile. In 1969 border clashes prompted the Soviet Union to threaten the use of atomic weapons against China. That “nuclear blackmail” is one reason Beijing will oppose any similar Russian threats in Ukraine, according to Wang Yiwei, a former Chinese diplomat to the EU.

Another “red line” for Beijing, he added, is the principle of territorial sovereignty enshrined in the UN charter. That’s something China regularly uses to bolster its claim to Taiwan. And although Xi appears to share Putin’s concerns about the expansion of NATO, that doesn’t signal all-out support for Russia.

Those backing Moscow, said Wang, are not “supporting Russia’s territorial seizure” but rather celebrating “Russians with their behavior against Western hegemony.” Wang, now an influential academic and director of Renmin University’s Institute of International Affairs added: “Many people hate Russia and criticize Russia.”

One area of tension has been China’s Belt and Road initiative — Xi’s landmark foreign policy program to expand Beijing’s influence through projects now valued at $1 trillion — which has made inroads into Central Asia, Russia’s backyard.

For now, Russia can do little about the imbalance in relations. “Moscow badly needs Beijing’s co-operation to keep its economy afloat,” said Alexander Isakov, an economist who covers Russia at Bloomberg Economics. “Moscow will have to shoulder most of the costs.”

The growth in bilateral trade with Russia is a rare bright spot for China, as policymakers try to kickstart growth in the sluggish economy. Increased exports to Russia are partly attributable to Chinese consumer goods companies filling the gap vacated by western brands who fled the country after sanctions were imposed. Shipments of made-in-China vehicles, parts and accessories jumped to about $14 billion in the first eight months of this year, a more than five-fold increase from the same period in 2021, according to data from China’s General Administration of Customs.

Longer-term, Moscow needs Beijing to invest in domestic manufacturing. Sectors like the automobile industry need help to fill the gap left by Western companies. Just eight out of Russia’s 14 passenger-car plants are operational. Smaller Chinese car manufacturers already produce in Russia, but to return output to pre-invasion levels of about 1.4 million cars, from 451,000 in 2022, another two or three major companies would need to set up assembly lines in Russia, according to Bloomberg Economics analysis.

“For Russia, closer integration with China is a necessity — it needs to find a replacement for technology, capital that has previously been provided from the EU and other G-7 countries,” said Isakov. “For China, the risk is that capital invested in Russia may lose value when and if sanctions on Moscow are relaxed or lifted and its producers will have to compete for the market share with G-7 car manufacturers again.”

Beijing is providing respite for Moscow’s most pressing financial worries. It has become the main buyer of cheap Russian oil and gas in the absence of European customers. China bought about $37.5 billion of crude oil from Russia in the first eight months of 2023 according to Chinese trade data. At the end of 2022, coal shipments had risen to over 64 million tons, an annual record that’s set to be shattered this year after imports topped 70 million tons between January and August.

At the same time as providing this financial lifeline, Beijing is holding out for a more favorable deal from Moscow over the proposed natural gas pipeline, Power of Siberia 2. Moscow frequently talks up the prospects of an imminent agreement, but Beijing has been far more reticent and no contracts have been signed. Analysts expect Russia to push for more deals and cooperation agreements this week.

The internationalization of the yuan, which makes up just 3% of the world’s foreign exchange reserves, is viewed by Beijing as another front in its efforts to challenge US dominance of the global financial system. Russia’s use of the yuan in export payments surged to 29% in August from zero prior to the invasion, while it made up 38% of imports versus 4% over the same period, the data show.

But Beijing can’t press its advantage too hard, according to Yun Sun, senior fellow and co-director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center think-tank. “Russia’s current strategic quagmire will not last forever,” she said. “For Beijing, the focus is not necessarily how much Russia is ready to give, but what costs China has to carry.”

— With assistance by Clara Ferreira Marques, Sarah Chen, Jason Rogers, James Mayger, Linda Lew, Lucille Liu, Jill Elaine Disis, Tom Orlik, Chang Shu, Jennifer Welch, Fran Wang, Xiao Zibang, and Alex Isakov

(Updates with fresh detail on Putin’s arrival in Beijing.)

Symptomatic of the cascading tensions, Russian foreign ministry summoned the Japanese ambassador on Friday and a protest was lodged in extraordinarily harsh language, as it came to be known that the 100 vehicles that Tokyo innocuously promised last week to Ukraine would in reality be armoured vehicles and all-terrain vehicles. Apparently, Tokyo was dissimulating, since Japan’s export rules ban its companies from selling lethal items overseas! 

Tokyo is crossing a “red line” and Moscow is not amused. The foreign ministry statement on Friday “stressed that the administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida should be ready to share responsibility for the deaths of civilians, including those in Russia’s border regions… (and) driving bilateral relations even deeper into a dangerous impasse. Such actions cannot remain without serious consequences.”

Significantly, on Friday, in a video conference with General Liu Zhenli, Chief of Staff of the Joint Staff Department of China’s Central Military Commission, the Chief of the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces and First Deputy Minister of Defence General Valery Gerasimov expressed confidence in the expansion of military cooperation between the two countries and noted, “Coordination between Russia and the People’s Republic of China in the international arena has a stabilising effect on the world situation.” 

The Chinese media later reported that the two generals agreed that Russia will participate (for the second time) in the Northern/Interaction-2023 exercise organised by China, signalling a new framework of China-Russia joint strategic exercises alongside the  joint air patrol over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea by their strategic bombers. By the way, the sixth such joint air petrol was conducted on Tuesday since the practice began in 2019. 

The big picture is that the shift in Japanese policies through the past year — close alignment with the US regarding Ukraine; copying the West’s sanctions against Russia; supply of lethal weaponry to Ukraine, etc. — has seriously damaged the Russo-Japanese relationship. On top of it, Japan’s re-militarisation with American support and its  growing ties with the NATO (which is lurching toward the Asia-Pacific) makes Tokyo a common adversary of both Moscow and Beijing. 

The imperative to push back this resurgent US client is strongly felt in Moscow and Beijing, which also has a global dimension since Russia and China are convinced that Japan is acting like a surrogate of American dominance in Asia and is subserving western interests. On its part, in a turnaround, Washington now actively encourages Japan to be an assertive regional power by jettisoning its constitutional limits to rearmament. It pleases Washington that Japan pledged a long-term increase of over 60 percent in defence spending. 

What worries Moscow and Beijing is also the ascendance of revanchist elements — vestiges of Japan’s imperial era — in the top echelons of power in the recent period. Of course, Japan continues to be in denial mode as regards its atrocities during the period of its brutal colonisation of China and Korea and the horrific war crimes during World War 2. 

This trend bears striking similarity to what is happening in Germany, where too the pro-Nazi elements are reclaiming habitation and a name. Curiously, a German-Japanese axis is present at the core of Washington’s strategies against Russia and China in Eurasia and Northeast Asia. 

The German Bundeswehr is expanding its combat exercises in the Indian and Pacific Oceans and will deploy more naval and air force units to the Asia-Pacific region next year. A recent German report noted, “The intensification of German participation in Asian-Pacific regional manoeuvres is taking place at a time when the United States is carrying out record-breaking manoeuvres in Southeast Asia, in its attempts to intensify its control over the region and displace China as much as possible.”

Japan’s motivations are easy to fathom. Apart from Japanese  revanchism which fuels the nationalist sentiments, Tokyo is convinced that a settlement with Russia over Kuril Islands is not to be expected now, or possibly ever, which means that a peace treaty will not be possible to bring the World War 2 hostilities to an end formally. Second, Japan no longer visualises Russia to be a “balancer” in its  troubled relationship with China. 

Third, most important, as Japan sees the rise of China as a political and economic threat, it is rapidly militarising, which in turn creates its own dynamic in terms of both upending its power position in Asia as also integrating itself with the West (“globalising”). Inevitably, this translates as promoting NATO in the Asian power dynamic, something that cuts deep into Russia’s core national security and defence strategies. Consequently, whatever hopes the strategists in Moscow had nurtured in the past that Japan could be weaned away from the US orbit and encouraged to exercise its strategic autonomy have evaporated into thin air. 

Arguably, in his zest to integrate Japan into the US-led “collective West”, Prime Minister Kishida overreached himself. He behaves as if he is obliged to be more loyal than the king himself. Thus, on the same day that President Xi Jinping visited Moscow in March, Kishida landed in Kiev from where he went to attend a NATO Summit and openly began lobbying for establishment of a NATO office in Tokyo. 

Kishida followed up by hosting NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Tokyo and giving him a platform to berate China publicly from its doorstep. There is no easy explanation for such excessive behaviour. Is it a matter of impetuous behaviour alone or is it a calculated strategy to gain legitimacy for the ascendance of revanchist elements whom Kishida represents in the Japanese power structure?

To be sure, Northeast Asia is a priority now for China and Russia, given their overlapping interests in the region. NATO expansion to Asia and the sharp rise in the US force projection bring home to the defence strategists in Beijing and Moscow that the Sea of Japan is a “communal backyard” for the two countries where their “no limits” strategic partnership ought to be optimal. The Chinese commentators no longer downplay that the Russian-Chinese military ties “serve as a powerful counterbalance to the US’ hegemonic actions.” 

It is entirely conceivable that at some point in a near future, China and Russia may begin to view North Korea as a protagonist in their regional alignment. They may no longer  feel committed to observe the US-led sanctions against North Korea. Indeed, if that were to happen, a host of possibilities will arise. The Russian-Iranian military ties set the precedent.