Essay: Xi Jinping Gambles on Putin’s Wars. China’s Jiang Zemin & Hu Jintao Did Not Need To
President Vladimir Putin’s nearly three year slog inside sovereign Ukraine fuels mission creep for Russian forces and Chinese sponsor Xi Jinping’s substantial, yet globally interdependent, and therefore limited, instruments of power.
Compared with his predecessors, Xi has become a spendthrift of Chinese good will with his international support for aggressors Russia and Iran against Ukraine and Israel, and his direct aggression against South China Sea neighbors.
Xi Jinping Thought Validates Munger’s Psychology of Human Misjudgment in Unnecessary Investments
Investing in Russian wars on the West’s borders with diminishing returns and no exit strategy was not necessary under PRC Presidents Jiang Zemin or Hu Jintao. This is inferred from the SCO charter predating Xi Jinping which slanted SCO members’ strategic obligations toward China with recognition of Taiwan-as-China the key term for SCO membership. Recognition of Ukraine as Russia’s was not a term of SCO membership.
Without necessity, Xi has unilaterally made Putin’s designs on Ukraine a binding term on the PRC partnership with Russia. Yet the lesson unheeded by Putin and Xi about Russia in Ukraine is that Russia does not have enough troops, even if it should succeed in occupying Ukraine, to hold Ukraine as a functioning colony.
For even if Ukraine was wholly occupied by Russian forces, a well-supplied, protracted Ukrainian guerrilla war would be unendingly successful against the shrinking Russian military. The Russian military would eventually be forced to exit, or, invite China’s military in to secure Russia’s western border in what would amount to a soft takeover of Russia itself, tempting unrest.
As Russia slowly becomes collateral for the Siloviki regime’s debt to China in Russia’s name, slavic nations, seeing secular China’s rise in proximity to Moscow and Moscow’s willingness to war against slavic nations of shared faith and culture could balk and reverse course, befriending Ukraine and aligning with the West.
Putin could have made peace with Ukraine in 2014, put the minority separatists in the Donbas in their place, and moved on with peaceful trade and coexistence with Ukraine in harmony with Hu Jintao’s “peaceful development” policy. This, especially having finagled Ukraine’s nuclear weapons from them.
Instead, he rolled the dice of war again.
Xi Jinping has since allowed Putin to steer the Chinese Communist Party’s risk tolerance toward an investment black hole in Russian military adventures with no limits in sight.
The Black Hole
As one who cares for and feeds an addict, China is investing in and creating a heavier and heavier albatross for itself to carry that could destroy its Belt and Road objectives as countries remembering Soviet dominance, and some their Islamic roots, resist reabsorption.
As Russia’s economy shows signs of temporary strength in its war industry, without men enough to run the machines of conquest much less defense, it is due to collapse. Likewise, China’s bet on Russian manpower will sink into a demographic decline of the ruling Russian slav majority into a diversity mash-up of un-consenting power blocs that will likely renege on Chinese deals.
To avert that, China will need to send its supplies increasingly on credit to Russia to help it crack down across its time zones, and or, Russia must pay exorbitant interest via artificially low energy prices guaranteed to China as an offset to China’s risk, thus depriving itself of much needed cash for its resources. Yet the war is already taking its toll on Russian energy infrastructure as Ukraine shows its superiority in punching above weight.
What this necessitates for secularist China in the future may be a soft-takeover of Russia to hope to recover its investments and to keep an Islamist regime from taking over when Putin’s siloviki network collapses by its own malfeasance and leadership failure. This, as Putin sends wave after wave of Russian men into a war with fellow slavs with diminishing returns. Russia’s many demographics will not likely stand unified for Chinese rule or suzerainty, and warlords will arise, engulfing Chinese troops and expats in an endless civil and counter-insurgency war.
Indeed, by continually encouraging the Gambler from Tver, secularist China could accelerate its own, and the world’s, profound insecurity.
The Future of Eurasia is Bright with an Independent Ukraine & Most Likely for Russians Too
Indeed, Ukraine is proving to be a great power with its president more worthy of ruling Russians than Russians are themselves, however, not asking for it. Rather, Ukrainians simply want to rule themselves and let Russians rule their own ample territory without hogging more that they have consistently run so poorly. Ukrainians have sought independence for over a century and have shown themselves worthier of freedom and investment by all of their neighbors. If by successfully expelling Russia from Ukraine the Russians finally get competent leadership, it will benefit Russia as well.
