Interestingly, while Russia gets entangled in the war, China has challenged Russia by renaming 9 Russian places in Chinese.
As the Chinese President, Xi Jinping was about to set off on his state visit to Russia, the International Criminal Court (ICC) on 17 March issued a war crime arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin. The day Xi landed in Russia, the US President, Joe Biden signed a bipartisan bill that directs the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to declassify intelligence related to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the potential links between the research that was done in the institute and the outbreak of COVID-19. As regards the former, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Wang Wenbin upheld that the ICC should avoid “politicization and double standards” (政治化和双重标准), adhere to an “objective and impartial stance”（客观公正立场）and “respect the jurisdictional immunity” （管辖豁免）that any head of state enjoys in accordance with international law. As regards the latter, Wang said, “the US bill seriously distorts the facts (严重歪曲事实), concocts false information (炮制虚假信息), hypes up the ‘laboratory leak theory’ without any evidence, and smears and attacks China. China is strongly dissatisfied with this and firmly opposes it.” Beside these, the Chinese media has much more to say.
One, Xi’s visit was well planned in advance and had been described as an “opening chapter of the new Chinese government’s diplomacy” in an article entitled “Why is the Chinese leader visiting Russia?” published by the People’s Daily and other media outlets in China on 18 March 2023. The article holds the US responsible for China’s embrace of Russia and other global issues. It accuses the US for the “dual containment” (双遏制) of China and Russia on the one hand, and creating a “wedge” (打楔子) between them on the other. It argues that in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis, the US is weakening Russia, and at the same time containing China by promoting the “Indo-Pacific version of NATO”. The US desires to “crush” (压垮) both China and Russia at the same time, but instead has pushed China and Russia closer to each other. It accuses the US of “cognitive warfare” (认知战手法) with China that desires to reproduce the “Ukraine crisis” in China’s vicinity, so as to induce China to fall into the “Thucydides Trap”. The China-Russia “Deepening the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination for the New Era” signed during Xi Jinping’s Moscow visit further cements the bilateral relationship.
Two, the US has been pronounced as a “paper tiger” “walking at night with gongs and drums”, thus exposing its own “guilty conscience” (自身心虚). The Chinese media declares, China will not be intimidated, for China’s diplomacy doesn’t suffer from osteomalacia, let alone be obsequious to intimidation by the US. China’s Russia relations, it says are based on non-alignment, non-confrontation, and non-targeting of third parties. The bilateral trade that exceeded $190 billion in 2022, an increase of 120% over a decade, has been flagged as one of the astounding achievements of the close cooperation between China and Russia. During Xi’s visit, another joint statement entitled “Pre-2030 Development Plan on Priorities in China-Russia Economic Cooperation” is certainly a breather for Russia, which has been subjected to harsh sanctions by the West. Xi Jinping called on both sides to strengthen trade in traditional areas, such as energy, resources, and electromechanical products, enhance the resilience of industrial and supply chains, expand cooperation in such areas as information technology, the digital economy, agriculture and trade in services.
Three, China and Russia have been upheld as practitioners of “genuine multilateralism” (真正的多边主义) who are leading the developing countries to defend international fairness and justice, and maintain the international system with the United Nations at its core and the international order based on international law. By way of this, both supposedly have expanded their “friend circle” (朋友圈), which according to the above article has infringed upon the US “interests and cheese.” It is precisely for this reason that the US continues to label China-Russia relations as an “axis of evil” (邪恶轴心) and an “authoritarian alliance” (威权联盟) which according to the West is challenging the international order and instigating a new cold war. The article says that conversely, the US looks at Sino-Russian relations through the “filter of Cold War mentality” and “zero-sum game”. It is the US that is keen on “building walls and creating barriers”, “long-arm jurisdiction” and “decoupling and disrupting the supply chains.”
Four, the article argues that from NATO to the G7, from the “Five Eyes Alliance” to the “Quad” and further to the “AUKUS”, the US has built “small circles” to create an anti-China-Russia “hubs and spokes system” (辐轴体系) that will drag the world into the abyss of division and confrontation, nevertheless, the US still wishes to give the “mortally sick American democracy” (病入膏肓的美式民主) a shot in the arm, the outcome of which could be well imagined.
Another article published by Xinhua on 20 March 2023, declares that it is time to say “four Nos” to the US: don’t make irresponsible remarks on normal exchanges between sovereign states; do not compare Sino-Russian relations with the small circle of US allies; don’t undermine China’s efforts to promote peace talks on the Ukraine issue; stop using the Ukraine crisis as an excuse to assault and sanction China.
Finally, the visit has been portrayed as a “peace trip” (和平之旅). As for facilitating peace in Ukraine, China reiterates its 12-point peace plan it proposed on 24 February 2023. While the article makes mention of “China quietly facilitating a dialogue between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Beijing”, it however, argues that “the key to solving the Ukraine crisis is not in the hands of China, but in the hands of the US and the West.” The article by Xinhua further posits that the Saudi-Iran deal has “made the US very envious and jealous, the US is very worried that the Ukraine issue could be resolved in a similar fashion.” Though Xi Jinping in Moscow laid emphasis on the adherence to the principles of the UN Charter and the international law, but refrained from asking Russia to withdraw from the occupied territories. The People’s Daily article maintains that rather than cooling down the Ukraine crisis, the US has repeatedly used military aid to influence the direction of the war, and frequently spent tens of billions of dollars to lure Ukraine into a “bottomless pit” (无底洞).
Interestingly, while Russia gets entangled in the war, China has challenged Russia by renaming 9 Russian places including the famous Vladivostok as Haishenwai, Nerchinsk as Nibuchu, Sakhalin as Quedao, Stanovoy Range as the Waixing’anlin in Chinese. The depletion of both the Russian and American resources in Ukraine certainly serves Chinese interests, and like any other state China does what serves its national interests best.
B.R. Deepak is Professor and Chair, Center of Chinese and Southeast Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.