On the eve of a crucial bilateral summit in Beijing, the delicate balances of Chinese diplomacy have been exposed. And the president of China, Xi Jinping, would have formally suggested to the US president, Donald Trump, during their meeting last week, that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, “could end up regretting” having launched his large-scale invasion against Ukraine in 2022.
The revelation, confirmed by several people familiar with Washington’s assessment of the Beijing summit at Financial Times and known this morning, occurs at a time of very complicated diplomatic balance. Putin lands precisely this Tuesday in the Chinese capital for a two-day state visit, just a week after his American counterpart concluded his own official trip to the Asian giant. Something moves. And it goes fast.
The sequence reported by the newspaper underlines Beijing’s attempt to position itself as the central axis of world geopolitics, calibrating stability with the White House without fracturing its strategic alliance with the Kremlin. According to sources familiar with previous meetings between Xi and the former US president, Democrat Joe Biden, both held “frank and direct” conversations about Russia and Ukraine. However, the Chinese leader had never gone so far as to offer a critical assessment of Putin’s personal decisions. It is a public reversal of what has been exposed until now by the communist regime.
The statements now made to Trump represent the most explicit questioning documented to date by Beijing regarding the long-term benefit of Moscow’s military campaign. His usual position has been to put himself in profile, saying that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries must be respected, with a small mouth, while continuing to do business with the Kremlin and defending the “legitimate security concerns” of all parties, that is, the right of the Russians to attack if they felt intimidated, for example, with the expansion of NATO to Eastern Europe (of which there is no evidence, no matter how much Putin says).
This ambivalence has not stopped the commercial boom between the two Eurasian giants. Since the start of the invasion, Beijing has purchased more than $367 billion in Russian fossil fuels, an uninterrupted financial flow that has shored up the Kremlin’s economy in the face of the Western sanctions regime. Along with India, it has been its main savior. Only the possibility of its banks paying for its aid to Russia, due to international sanctions, has somewhat curbed its support. kyiv has repeatedly denounced that Russia uses data from Chinese satellites to hit basic energy infrastructure.
All eyes on the visit
The timing chosen for Putin’s 25th visit to China – which formally coincides with the 25th anniversary of the Treaty of Good Neighborhood, Friendship and Cooperation signed in 2001 – is not coincidental. Moscow seeks an explicit reaffirmation of the “unlimited friendship” proclaimed by both leaders in February 2022, a few days before Russian tanks crossed the Ukrainian border.
“Trump’s trip was about stabilizing the most important bilateral relationship in the world; Putin’s visit is about reassuring a long-term strategic partner,” Wang Zichen, deputy secretary general of the Center for China & Globalization, a Beijing-based think tank, told the Associated Press agency. “Beijing wants to maintain stable relations with the West, maintain strategic trust with Moscow and have sufficient diplomatic space to present itself as an impartial power capable of dialogue with all parties,” he elaborates.
Despite leaks about Xi’s warnings, the Kremlin has tried to project normality and focus the agenda on the economic dividend of its alliance. Moscow and Beijing finalize an important energy pact. Earlier this month, Vladimir Putin himself emphasized the progress of the negotiations by declaring that they have achieved “a very substantial step forward in our cooperation in the oil and gas sector.”
The Russian leader added optimistically: “Virtually all the key issues have been agreed. If we can finalize these details and bring them to a conclusion during this visit, I will be extremely pleased.”
Likewise, the Kremlin spokesman, the powerful Dmitry Peskov, confirmed last weekend that the trip will serve for Russia to receive direct updates and share points of view with China regarding the negotiations that Beijing had with the Trump administration.
Far from showing discomfort with the open channels between Beijing and Washington, Moscow’s public position defends that mutual understanding benefits global stability. “The interaction between nations like China and Russia undoubtedly serves as a deterrent and stability factor,” Putin said before beginning his trip, also ensuring that Moscow welcomes the dialogue between China and the United States as “another stabilizing element for the global economy.”
In his words, Russia “can only benefit from this, from the stability and constructive engagement between the US and China.” However, the contrast between the public rhetoric of cooperation and the private assessments shared with the White House highlights Xi Jinping’s dilemma. While the Chinese leader reminded Trump in his trade meetings that “there are no winners in a trade war,” behind the scenes he also seems to warn that, on the Eastern European military board, Putin could well be the next to see that there are no absolute victories either.
