China has one goal: to prevent either defeat of Russia in Ukraine or victory. Because Beijing needs a Russia that is dependent on it for as long as possible. By Konstantin Eggert.
Xi Jinping will not personally consult and coordinate his positions with Vladimir Putin before his meeting with Donald Trump. The American president is expected to visit China on May 14-15, and the Russian dictator will probably arrive there a week later.
Mutual claims of Washington and Beijing
The US president will arrive in China as an adversary, but a respected adversary. The leader of the world's number one economic power will visit the number two economic superpower. The volume of trade between the two countries is almost $600 billion - mainly industrial products with varying degrees of technological complexity.
Trump will talk with Xi primarily about avoiding trade and tariff wars between the two countries and ending Beijing's support for the regime in Tehran. For the Chinese leader, the most important topic will be the war in Iran - how to end it, how to stabilize the Middle East and how to quickly resume supplies of energy raw materials from the region. After all, the Chinese economy depends very much on Middle Eastern oil.
It is clear that there is no great trust between Xi and Trump and it is unlikely that any will arise. But it is also clear that the Chinese leadership has no other option than to negotiate with the Americans - for the first time in the last fifty years - on both economic and military-strategic issues. Despite the interdependence between the two economies, China is objectively weaker than America both financially and economically and militarily.
Unequal dialogue between Xi and Putin
For 25 years, China and Russia have had a treaty of good neighborliness, friendship and cooperation, and Moscow and Beijing's propaganda never ceases to praise the ongoing "quarter-century friendship and all-round cooperation". Contacts between the two dictators are indeed unprecedentedly frequent.
Since Xi Jinping was elected President of the People's Republic of China in 2013, he has visited Russia 11 times. During the same period, Putin has traveled to China 13 times. This includes both purely bilateral visits (during which, as a rule, the main issues are resolved), and participation in summits (for example, of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization) or protocol events related to various anniversaries of World War II.
Of course, even short personal meetings are always important. However, it is important to understand that these are meetings between unequal partners. Especially after February 24, 2022, when full-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine began, Putin consciously made Russia dependent on China in order to ensure stable financing of the war against the neighboring country.
Russian-Chinese trade exchange last year amounted to about $ 230 billion, with mutual exports and imports being distributed approximately equally. However, there is one important nuance: raw materials, primarily oil, are exported from Russia to China, and cars, household appliances, computers, and means of communication are imported. Moreover, discounts on Russian oil reached 30, and sometimes 40 percent.
In addition, today China is one of the main channels for Russia to obtain dual-use goods that are subject to Western sanctions. Independent experts in the West estimate their volume at four billion dollars. It would not be an exaggeration to say that without the help of the PRC, Russia simply could not have fought against Ukraine.
The mistake of Trump and his team
The hopes periodically arising in the Trump administration to "tear" Russia from China through concessions to Putin regarding Ukraine are completely unfounded. They reveal a misunderstanding of the political goals and psychology of both the Russian and Chinese regimes.
Putin's goal is either to install a puppet regime in Kiev (although it seems to me that even he already realizes the impossibility of this happening) or to destroy the Ukrainian state through a prolonged, exhausting war. Even the most cynical supporters of "realpolitik" in Washington, however, will not give the Kremlin such a gift. But they could not, even if they wanted to. And Putin will not agree to anything less, and has clearly demonstrated this over the past year. Despite all Trump's efforts to involve him in some "peace process," the Kremlin refuses to seriously discuss with representatives of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky anything other than humiliating unilateral concessions, tantamount to capitulation. Under these conditions, Putin can in no way manage without China's help.
Xi Jinping understands this. He needs a Russia that is dependent on China for as long as possible. If it loses the war, the option of the fall of the Putin regime and the coming to power of people ready to normalize relations with the US and Europe cannot be ruled out. Then Moscow's willingness to distance itself from Beijing as part of the price, for example, the lifting of sanctions or its return to the G-7, would be a very realistic scenario. And it does not suit the Chinese Politburo at all.
But Beijing is not interested in a decisive victory for Russia over Ukraine either. First: this will give the Kremlin confidence. And second: over time, part of the Western elite may decide to accept Russia as it is and begin to gradually restore relations with it. In this case, Moscow may greatly change the tone of communication with China, and not in the best direction for it.
So the current situation of a protracted war completely suits the Chinese leadership. Russia as a supplicant and junior partner of China – Neither emperors nor Mao Zedong dreamed of such happiness.
So Xi Jinping will, of course, inform Putin about his talks with Trump. But nothing more.