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China as an instrument of peace in Ukraine?

2023-03-26T10:35:57.384Z


It will depend on whether the moment will come when the Asian giant decides that a war that carries the danger of international escalation goes against its commercial interests.


Seeing the photo this week of

Xi Jinping

, the Chinese leader, and

Vladimir Putin

, the Russian, shaking hands in Moscow, it occurred to me that Putin should wear shorts.

The Kremlin painted it as a meeting between equals, as the consolidation of a beautiful friendship, but the reality is that Russia is a junior partner for China.

China is a superpower that is growing;

Russia, a country ruled by a dangerous crank whose primitive economy depends for its survival on the sale of raw materials to Beijing.

Next week the president of the Spanish government,

Pedro Sánchez

, travels to China.

When you take the photo with Xi Jinping, his long pants will not be too big for you.

They will discuss the Russian war in Ukraine in a climate of mutual respect, not Chinese condescension.

Sánchez will address the issue that most divides the world as a representative of NATO and the European Union, whose position against the Russian invasion Spain unequivocally supports with rhetoric, money and tanks.

There is no doubt that Sánchez will consult with his allies in Washington and in Europe before meeting with Xi Jinping.

No doubt they will encourage him to explore the possibility of opening a loophole with China so that perhaps

one day the Asian giant will use his enormous influence over Russia to help end the war

.

Sánchez already said it in Brussels after attending an EU summit:

"We will also talk about Ukraine, where the most important thing is that a stable and lasting peace can be guaranteed

" in which

"the fundamental thing is to preserve an international order based on rules."

No one is under any illusions that the supposed peace plan that Xi Jinping proposed to Putin will achieve results in the short term, which is why Sánchez chose his words well when he added that he was referring to “that peace

when it comes”

.

Today China and Russia are allies against the perfidious West.

Stopping the killing of both Russians and Ukrainians is not an imperative for China, any more than it is for Putin.

China is guided by its interests, period

.

The question is whether the time will come when he decides that a war that carries the danger of an international escalation goes against his interests, that is, commercial ones.

There is a phrase that a president of the United States formulated a century ago:

“the chief business of America is business”

.

The main issue in America is business.

The same can be said of China today.

If they conclude in Beijing that Russian warmongering is interfering with their mission to conquer the world through trade, they will seriously think about influencing Putin to behave like a responsible adult.

What are the chances that day will come?

Well, let's start by seeing how the alliance with Russia has fared for China after a year of war.

Being cold people in analysis, the members of the Chinese Communist Party's central committee cannot exactly have celebrated the fiasco that the Russian imperialist adventure has turned into.

Putin met Xi Jinping in February of last year, three weeks before the invasion.

If he managed to convince him then that taking kyiv would be a matter of days, today the Chinese leader understands that Putin fell into a colossal self-deception.

As he also understands that the much talked about Russian professional army consists of a bunch of demoralized inepts who have not been able to keep up with the amateur military force of a poor but daring enemy.

As for geopolitics, that word that Putin likes so much, it hasn't fared very well for China either, with its claims to global economic dominance.

The world has become polarized around the war

, but let's look at the pole that China leads.

A resolution was put to the vote at the United Nations last month demanding that Russia withdraw its troops from Ukraine.

Six countries voted against along with Russia: Syria, North Korea, Belarus, Eritrea, Mali and Nicaragua;

32 abstained, including China;

and 142 voted in favor, including China's two powerful pro-Western neighbors, Japan and South Korea.

It is difficult for this equation to change, so China will have to ask itself one of these days if it wants to continue seeing itself at the head of a collection of Mindungu countries facing a bloc from which it buys and, on a larger scale, sells the vast majority of its products.

Ignore everything I've written so far in the event that China decides to supply Russia with weapons, in which case we would be seriously approaching World War III.

But there are no signs of it.

And let's not forget that China acts as a powerful deterrent to Putin following through on his threats to resort to nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

What could a Chinese peacekeeping role consist of?

Not in voting with the United States at the UN, not in convincing Russia to surrender.

Not that.

Among other things because Russia is an important source of oil and minerals for the Chinese industry.

No.

The possible role of China would be seen once the war reaches such a point of paralysis that a ceasefire will have to be negotiated followed by a peace agreement

.

The success of such a mission will depend entirely on the guarantees that can be given that Russia will not be tempted to invade Ukraine again.

And also that NATO would not invade Russia.

Putin and his propagandists in the Russian media say they believe the United States and its allies want to wipe out their country.

Pure paranoia, but we will have to play along, and no power more credible than China to offer such guarantees, and incidentally offer them to Ukraine.

This, I believe, is what Pedro Sánchez has in mind when he says that he will explore Chinese aid options to preserve a rules-based international order and maintain stability on the Russian border.

The main incentive for Xi Jinping is that, as Sánchez well knows, a world war is not good for business.

look also

The lizard and the lion

The nonsense of confinements

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2023-03-26

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