François Godement: "China's support for Russia remains above all ideological"

François Godement is a historian and advisor for Asia at the Institut Montaigne.

FIGAROVOX.

- During a trip to Japan, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen denounced a “

Francois Godement.

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I would qualify them, because the term pact obviously brings to mind the German-Soviet pact and the two strategic partners, Russia and China, avoid the term alliance to qualify their relations.

It is true that the February 4 communiqué between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin spoke for the first time of unlimited cooperation.

But if there is a pact, it is an ideological and diplomatic pact.

Ideological on the part of Xi Jinping who, since coming to power in 2012, has publicly lamented the fall of the USSR, condemned Gorbachev as responsible for it, and lamented that he had not found a man to prevent this dissolution.

Xi Jinping is a supporter of Putin's restoration of authority.

We can also see very strong reciprocal support at the United Nations,

with nuances all the same: Russia uses its right of veto fairly liberally while China is very much in the background.

However, she takes strong positions, and she has just done so again by voting against the opening of an investigation by the UN Human Rights Council into possible war crimes committed by the Russians. in Ukraine.

We can also see that all Chinese public propaganda conveys Russian allegations about the conflict.

It deliberately confuses the destruction done on the side of Ukraine and Russia and it makes NATO solely responsible for the current conflict.

China also places particular emphasis on certain allegations: the United States has developed biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine.

This also allows China to resurrect the fable that American laboratories created the Covid.

This is reminiscent of Soviet propaganda, that of the Cominform during the Korean War in 1952. The Soviets then accused the United States of spreading a bacteriological virus.

We therefore find ourselves in ideological reverberations that recall the time of the Sino-Soviet alliance.

Recently, the New China Agency, the official Chinese press, published a long interview with the Ukrainian Foreign Minister condemning the Russian action.

Francois Godement

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, China's support for Russia seems muted.

Beijing would rather abstain than vote against UN resolutions, notably the Security Council resolution condemning Ukraine's aggression in March, and more recently the resolution on the Human Rights Council investigation of Ukraine. 'UN.

Why ?

We saw the Chinese reserves not in the very first days, from February 24, but as soon as the conflict was set to last, and it became clear that Russia was not going to win quickly.

We no longer see much quoted from the press release of February 4 and we mention the fact that the partnership between China and Russia cannot be directed against a third party.

Recently, the New China Agency, the official Chinese press, published a long interview with the Ukrainian Foreign Minister condemning the Russian action.

This is a warning to Chinese ideologues not to go too far in supporting Russia.

The other reservation that China makes is that, so far, in the current state of the information we have, nothing shows that China is circumventing in a massive way the sanctions decided by the G7 countries and the 'European Union.

We have had a rise in the value of oil and gas purchases, which is logical given the increase in prices, but there is no sign that China is exporting arms.

There was an American warning on March 10 about it, but we don't hear about it anymore.

There are also no signs that big Chinese companies are about to replace Western companies in Russia.

This is what China has always done, but there is the fear of secondary sanctions: beyond the condemnations in principle, ricochet sanctions could target Chinese companies.

So we had a withdrawal from Huawei on 5G;

China's largest drone company has also announced that it will suspend sales to Russia and Ukraine.

On the other hand, as the Chinese economy is slowed down, its energy needs are reduced and it has chosen coal, so its energy needs are not increasing.

Undoubtedly, Xi Jinping took a cue from Vladimir Putin in his refusal to pursue reform and openness to the West.

Francois Godement

In short, China's attitude towards Russia is one of ideological support and propaganda, of diplomatic concordance at the United Nations, but it does not always adopt the same position and, for the moment, practical caution remains, particularly with regard to sanctions.

Beyond the denunciation of the West, what brings China and Russia together?

Do the two countries really speak as equals?

We must not underestimate the assets that Russia can possess even if its GDP is the equivalent of one and a half Chinese provinces: it is a major supplier of energy and rare metals, and China needs them.

It also has the advantage of its military audacity.

The Chinese witnessed with surprise the military offensives in Georgia, Syria, and Ukraine today.

China does not use its weapons as much;

she prefers to win without going to war.

Economically, Russia remains very weak, and has seven to eight times less trade with the United States and the European Union than China, for example.

The rapprochement between China and Russia is a regimental alliance, centered on an authoritarian glacis and mutual inspiration.

Undoubtedly, Xi Jinping took a cue from Vladimir Putin in his refusal to pursue reform and openness to the West.

Putin, who initially presided over a semi-authoritarian, personalized, corrupt system, but with a place for the opposition and freedom of information, gradually reduced these freedoms and then erected an information wall to cut off Russia from the outside world.

There is a mutual inspiration.

The Russian regime is more visibly based on personal ties, a vertical of power through companies owned by oligarchs close to Putin.

But China is not so far from this situation,

Xi Jinping has never taken the kind of military risk that Vladimir Putin takes.

Francois Godement

However, it seems to me that a fundamental difference remains between the two regimes: Xi Jinping certainly exalts the Chinese past, but he is resolutely turned towards the future, with an optimistic vision of China and its power, while Putin is only in the nostalgia of the USSR and turned to the past.

The CIA director said recently that China is closely monitoring what is happening in Ukraine to adjust its plans regarding Taiwan.

Do you think the Western response is likely to dissuade China from taking control of the island?

If we follow Chinese thinking, with the rare public declarations since February 24, there has been a very rapid evolution: the temptation to celebrate the coming Russian victory and to prophesy that a similar firmness would make it possible to take control of Taiwan. was quickly supplanted by a fierce desire to say that there was no possible parallel between Ukraine and Taiwan, Taiwan being considered a domestic matter, not an international one.

But China is slowly absorbing the lessons of the Russian military's struggles with Ukraine, and this should raise some questions about Taiwan.

We can imagine a scenario where the confrontation with Ukraine would become increasingly strong, with the involvement of the United States.

Would Xi Jinping take advantage of this to open a second front?

I don't believe that much, because Xi Jinping has never taken the type of military risk that Vladimir Putin takes.

The most likely scenario is that China learns lessons about asymmetric warfare, strengthens its weapons of deterrence, its own asymmetric assets, particularly its missiles, against the US Navy, and seeks closer nuclear parity with the United States to dissuade them from intervening in the event of a conflict,