Yeah, it might.
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/chinas-balancing-act-between-us-and-russia
The United States’ efforts to limit China’s shipments of dual-use goods to Russia seem to be having an impact. Russia is finding it harder to obtain the semiconductors and machine tools needed to sustain its war effort. Additionally, Putin’s plan to boost his failing gas revenues by building a second pipeline to China remains stalled.
Yet China is a winner in a situation created by Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine. China has expanded its market presence in Russia and secured affordable Russian hydrocarbons, but only to a degree that maintains its diversified portfolio of energy sources.
Aborted Trade Growth
Chinese-Russian trade has seen explosive growth since the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. With bilateral trade surging from $145 billion in 2021 to $240 billion in 2023, China has solidified its position as Russia’s main trading partner.
The primary areas of cooperation include energy, agriculture, technology, infrastructure construction, and transportation, Putin pointed out during his visit to Beijing. What this really means is that China is Russia’s top source for the types of goods that the United States identifies as “high-priority” items. These goods—including semiconductors, telecommunications equipment, and machine tools—can be used in both civilian and military sectors.
In December 2023, monthly exports of these dual-use products from China to Russia reached over $600 million but have since fallen to over $300 million per month. Despite this decrease, China’s support for Russia’s war effort through these supplies has been substantial. Russia’s dependence on China for these products has surged from 32 percent in 2021 to 89 percent in 2023.
But China also has no reason to do that, and some good reason not to. I bet that they won’t.
China may not have a direct interest in the outcome of the war itself.
However, it does gain from Russia being dependent on China.
The reason that Putin has been willing to have that dependence is because China isn’t actively aiming to oppose the invasion. All China has to do to gain here is, well, nothing.
For China, that’s a pretty low-cost way to gain a bunch of influence in Asia. My guess is that China’s goals probably look something like this:
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Make sure that this doesn’t turn nuclear (which would potentially affect China).
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Don’t have China become involved in the conflict.
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Make use of the period of time where Russia is cut off from the West to extend short-run Russian dependence (like, obtaining substitute parts from China) to long-run dependence (tying Russia to Chinese systems and services) insofar as possible.
If China decides to act in concert with the West, then it gains nothing – China probably doesn’t care much what happens in Ukraine – and loses this new influence in Russia, which Beijing probably does very much want.
It doesn’t help China’s now abysmal international reputation, most of the world hates them and for good reason. They also face incredible domestic challenges. I hope they crash and burn hard and soon.
China’s now abysmal international reputation
Where? In europe their reputation wasn’t good before, and I’m sure they don’t care about their reputation on the “WestTM”
If China decides to act in concert with the West, then it gains nothing – China probably doesn’t care much what happens in Ukraine – and loses this new influence in Russia, which Beijing probably does very much want.
That’s pretty much it. China is currently in a spot it very much wants to be, vast natural resources from Russia are theirs for pennies and global west is mildly annoyed that China doesn’t give a shit on Europe, but not enough to cause any meaningful harm with trade bans or anything. And try to guess who supplies the microchips and other stuff for drones which Ukraine has, and I’d guess China supplies a ton of other countries too whose tech toys are going to Ukraine.
As long as this status doesn’t change there’s absolutely no incentive for China to have any active part in the war. The longer current situation stays the stronger hold they can get on Russia and gain more profits for their industry.
China wants it to continue. They’re happy to watch NATO and others empty out their supplies for Ukraine. Potentially less supplies to later support Taiwan.
If anything, China benefits from maintaining the situation in Russia. When the war ends, their huge hold over Russia ends too
Don’t have China become involved in the conflict.
This is the tricky one for China - if Russia continues on the path they are clearly look to go, they will be attacking NATO next which in turns means NATO will go full war to respond and China will be forced to figure out how they respond to that. Could go in many different ways of course.
I hope it never gets that far, but that depends on Ukraine winning.
If Trump wins in November, Europe should seriously consider creating a situation where Russia triggers Article 5 and war commences. Once the US was involved they can’t pull out or they would be kicked out of Europe, and lose their place on the world stage. China would take Taiwan and push the Philippines, and Europe would say “cool story, bro” when the US sought help.
You forgot Taiwan. As Zipitidew said below, China is happy that NATO is sending so much material to Ukraine that they cannot send to Taiwan in the event of an invasion. My guess is they are not ready yet, otherwise the start of the war in ukraine and in Israel would have both been good moments to start their, when everyone is occupied with other affairs.
A war over Taiwan would at first be a naval conflict. Ukraine does not need many anti ship weapons and does not get many as well. Those factories are mainly free.
For many other systems the West is running at capacity and increasing it. Air defence missiles for example. Taiwan has Patriot and it would only be a matter of moving production to Ukraine to Taiwan instead to make it work. The West has jets, so there are other options of winning the air war. Ukraine currently gets F-16. So no longer as much needed and maybe the Europeans could intervene with a few jets, if need be. Similar story for a lot of other weapon systems. Increased production in Europe, which can be delivered to Taiwan.
Then you have use of weapons. It is much more likely that Taiwan will be allowed to strike China right away. No discussion as we saw in Ukraine.
Also yes China is not ready. They have to win the naval war and then be able to land. Invading Taiwan is much harder then invading Ukraine over what is flat open ground.
You are probably right. Still, I guess China would count on pubblic perception being against fighting for different foreign countries at the same time. People don’t like war and if you want to start a war you want to make sure the allies of your enemies are as less likely as possible to intervene. Of course that does not consider the incredible strategic importance of Taiwan
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Probably, but he won’t do that.
Xi is a terrible man.
