After one year of watching the conflict in Ukraine from afar, China might decide to step side-by-side with Russia.
For the entire duration of the Ukraine war, there has always been one major player apparently out of the trenches. The only “neutral” power in the world, or at least seemingly so: China.
However, China is everything but neutral, so much so that the United States are now worried they will provide Russia with weapons and military equipment. The war in Ukraine, after all, it’s now clearly a proxy war between the dying "Russian Empire” and the West. A resurgence of the Cold War… just with a new, crucially important actor: China.
During the Cold War, China was a developing nation that, albeit with many difficulties, was technically part of the Communist Bloc. Today, the position of the two powers is reversed: China is the most powerful nation of the two, while Russia is a literally dying nation.
While Russia relies only on its hydrocarbures, China is an advanced economy that has quickly become the second biggest in the world. And now they want to take the top spot, overrunning the undisputed global hegemon: the United States.
The United States has a clear stance on the current European war: total and undisputed support of Ukraine. In fact, the entirety of NATO shares this support, and the Ukrainian army is basically made up of Western equipment.
Therefore, given all of this, it is only natural that China would support Russia militarily.
The real tension
China should give outright support to Moscow also because they need Russian oil and gas. Indeed, at this very moment these resources are being shipped to Beijing for a bargain.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken has expressed his worries for Chinese military support to Russia. “We have information that gives us concern that they are considering providing lethal support to Russia in the war against Ukraine,” he said at the Munich Security Conference.
Tensions between China and the US are already high following the reconnaissance balloon incident. Antony Blinken himself was supposed to fly to Beijing to meet Chinese president Xi Jinping, but postponed the trip after the balloon was first spotted.
For their part, China keeps denying giving any support to Russia. As a matter of fact, they always publicly supported a peace resolution for the Ukraine war. On the other hand, however, they always blamed NATO’s expansion as a rightful casus belli for Moscow.
Whether they will support Russia or not, China’s most crucial dossier remains Taiwan. The island, an official US ally, is a matter of vital interest for Beijing, who has threatened outright invasion many times over the years.
An invasion of Taiwan, or quite simply more international military equipment funneled into Ukraine, would be a serious escalation of world tensions.
2023 looks increasingly less like the year of peace.
