“We must support whatever our enemy fights and fight whatever he supports,” said Mao Zedong. By visiting his “friend” Vladimir Putin in Moscow from March 20 to 22, just targeted by an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, Chinese President Xi Jinping shows that he has not forgotten the precept of his illustrious predecessor.
Many at the start of the war in Ukraine believed that the “limitless” partnership between China and Russia, announced a few weeks earlier, would not withstand a conflict triggered by Moscow. The reverse happened. Trade has jumped, Beijing has not condemned Russian aggression, has taken up Kremlin propaganda blaming the United States and NATO for the conflict, and the two countries have carried out joint military exercises.
Chinese resentment
As deadly fighting and destruction continue to ravage Ukraine, Xi Jinping has chosen to travel to his neighbor to consolidate Sino-Russian ties (while seeking to position himself as a mediator in the conflict). The reason ? China needs Russia’s help to fight against their common enemy, the United States.
It would be wrong to underestimate the strength of Chinese resentment against American global domination. As of February 4, 2022, the two autocrats castigated the “negative influence” of the United States and Western military alliances, judging them destabilizing, in Europe as in Asia. “Never since Mao has anti-Western virulence been so strong within the Chinese regime. Far from being a simple communication dressing, this speech dictates foreign policy decisions”, observes sinologist Alice Ekman, analyst in charge of Asia and China at the European Union Institute for Security Studies. The isolation caused by the Covid-19 epidemic and the sanctions imposed by the Americans in the semiconductor sector and the war in Ukraine have only reinforced this feeling.
“Beijing considers, like Moscow, that the war was provoked by Western countries in order to weaken Russia. And fears to be the next target, analyzes Zhao Tong, researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. China’s most important in this long-term campaign against the West”.
China no longer hides its hostility. In a document published on February 20 on the website of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and entitled “American hegemony and its perils”, Beijing makes the world’s leading power the main troublemaker on the planet. “The United States has developed a hegemonic manual to foment ‘color revolutions’, provoke regional conflicts and even directly launch wars under the pretext of promoting democracy, freedom and human rights”, accuses the text, which denounces the abuse of hegemony by the United States in the political, military, economic, financial, technological and cultural fields” and seeks to “draw more attention from the international community to the dangers of American practices for world peace and stability and the well-being of all peoples”.
Beijing, which has moved closer to another authoritarian state, Iran, and is strengthening its grip in Central Asia and various countries of the “South”, is trying to form an anti-Western family to shape a new world order and defend its interests ( in Xinjiang, in the South China Sea, and on the Taiwan case). “China is intensifying its cooperation with these countries in order to more openly challenge the American discourse on universal values and the Western political system,” insists Zhao Tong. The steamroller is running. And this is bad news for democracy and freedoms.