Great changes unseen: The China-Russia nexus and European security
ecfr.eu
Europeans must recalibrate their China policy—to recognise the country’s role effectively supporting Russia in its war on Ukraine.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/42534372

Op-ed by Alicja Bachulska, policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, and Ivana Karásková, research fellow and China team lead at the Association for International Affairs.

Archived

  • Under Chinese leader Xi Jinping, China places security above all other policy implications.
  • The officially endorsed philosophy of the country’s statecraft heralds “great changes unseen in a century”. It assumes the decline of the West—but acknowledges continued American hegemony.
  • In the international arena, this means that China’s relationship with Russia is its most important partnership as it faces off against the US.
  • Win, lose or draw in Ukraine, Russia will continue to receive Chinese support. There is nothing in China’s strategic positioning to suggest Beijing would cease to extend this support to Moscow.
  • No “reverse Nixon” policy by the West—to peel Russia away from China—is possible. Europeans should also resist any temptation to believe they can alter Chinese calculations vis-à-vis Russia. They must forge a new China policy on the basis that the country is deliberately prolonging war on their continent.