Xi - Putin Meeting

What’s in today’s article?

• Why in news?
• News Summary: Xi - Putin Meeting
• Why China-Russia relationship matters to Beijing?
• Does China want the war to end?
• How does the war affect China?

 

Why in news?

• China’s President Xi Jinping is on an enormously significant three-day visit to Russia. 
• He landed in Moscow days after the International Criminal Court issued warrants for the arrest of President Vladimir Putin for alleged war crimes.

 

News Summary: Xi - Putin Meeting

• Chinese President Xi Jinping has embarked on his first trip to Russia since the country invaded Ukraine last year.
• His trip to Russia offers a symbolic shot in the arm to his increasingly isolated Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
• It also highlights Xi’s determination to push back against American power in the world.

 

Why China-Russia relationship matters to Beijing?

• From security point of view
  • From the point of view of security, it is imperative for Beijing to maintain both outreach and cordial relations with Moscow.
  • Despite the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia is still China’s largest neighbour, a major source of military technology.
  • Russia continues to exercise influence in the former Soviet states that border China’s troubled west.
• Economic and energy security
  • Russia is now a major source of hydrocarbon energy as well as a market for China’s manufacturing and technology.
• Strategic
  • China sees in Russia an ally in the opposition to Western liberal ideas and a US-led global order.
  • The Chinese under Xi declared a partnership with no limits during Putin’s visit to Beijing in early February 2022 on the eve of his invasion of Ukraine.
  • To the Chinese, Western sanctions against Russia are an example of what a new Chinese document on their Global Security Initiative calls “abusing unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction”.
• Message to non-western world
  • Xi sees value in showing the non-Western world that there is an alternative to American power and ideas of how the world should be run.

 

Does China want the war to end?

• Experts believe Beijing is unlikely to want an end to the Russian war in Ukraine for several reasons.
• Weak Russia and opportunity for China
  • Being tied down in Ukraine has the effect of weakening Russia militarily, economically, and politically.
  • This is a vacuum that China can step into, especially in Eurasia.
    • E.g., In September last year, China offered security guarantees to Kazakhstan during Xi’s visit there, and made Belarus its second “all-weather strategic partner” after Pakistan.
• Diversion of the United States’ attention and resources
  • A prolonged conflict in Ukraine means that the West’s, and in particular the United States’, attention and resources are diverted.
  • From Beijing’s point of view, it weakens the focus on and reduces the resources for any potential Western intervention on China’s eastern seaboard, particularly in the scenario of a crisis over Taiwan.
• Rising Chinese role
  • A continuing crisis in Ukraine offers opportunities for international messaging about the relative rise in Chinese power in comparison to both the Russians and Americans.
• There is, therefore, little reason for Xi to try and persuade Putin to stop the war.
  • China’s political support at forums such as the United Nations and elsewhere has been crucial to Russia building a case for the legitimacy of the war.

 

How does the war affect China?

• The war brings costs to China — not just economic ones but political ones, too.
  • This is especially from the major Western nations that are also big markets for Chinese manufacturing and sources for high technology.
• But these are costs that the Chinese economy appears large enough to bear, especially when it is able to procure oil at deep discounts from Russia.
• Also, China has had its own version of technological self-reliance programmes underway for decades.
• China is also able to use its economic influence to carry out trade in its own currency with Russia and other sanctioned regimes — Iran, for example.

 

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Q1) What is the geographical location of China?

China is located in Eastern Asia, bordered by 14 countries including Russia, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Bhutan, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan. China has a diverse geographical landscape, with a total land area of approximately 9.6 million square kilometers, making it the third-largest country in the world after Russia and Canada.

 

Q2) Is there any border dispute between China and Russia? 

The border between China and Russia is one of the longest in the world, stretching over 4,200 kilometers (2,600 miles) across sparsely populated and remote areas in the north of both countries. The border was formally demarcated in the 1990s, and both sides have generally respected the border since then.

 

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Source: Power play in Moscow: What China hopes to gain from Xi’s meeting with Putin | NBC News |BBC