China with Putin or Trump? Whose side Beijing choose in peace talks on Russia-Ukraine war
Chinese leader Xi Jinping (photo: Getty images)
China is quite expectedly showing interest in negotiations to end Russia's war against Ukraine. Read about whether Beijing may withdraw its support for Russia, why China claims that Europe needs to be involved in the negotiations, and what this means for Ukraine - read in RBC-Ukraine's article below.
Contents
- China and peace talks
- China and United States
- Russian card in game with United States
- Is it possible to separate Russia from China?
- China's long game and prospects for Ukraine
Despite his considerable activity on the Russia-Ukraine war, US President Donald Trump regularly repeats that America's main rival is China. Indeed, there are many contradictions between Washington and Beijing, ranging from different views on the world order to rivalry for influence in many countries in Africa, Asia, and even Latin America. It is no coincidence that the backbone of Trump's foreign policy team is made up of people with a more pronounced anti-Chinese than anti-Russian stance, such as Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz.
For Ukraine, the most important thing is that China consistently avoids direct criticism of Russia (although it declares respect for Ukraine's sovereignty). Moreover, in the more than three years of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, China has become, in fact, Russia's deep rear. Many dual-use goods are supplied to Russia through the territory of China, various sanctions are actively circumvented through China, Russians are actively selling their energy carriers to the Chinese, and so on.
But since the start of the Trump-mediated peace talks, China has been virtually silent. At the same time, Beijing has made several significant statements in support of Europe.
China and peace talks
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at the Munich Security Conference on February 16 that they believed all interested parties should participate in the peace process. He added that the war was being fought on the territory of Europe and that, for this reason, Europe had an important role to play in the peace process
The context in which these words were uttered is important. The Chinese politician said them at a time when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US Vice President JD Vance were trying to find common ground on the minerals agreement. And Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said that Europe would not be at the table. It is not surprising that commentators have widely believed that China is siding with Europe in the peace process.
Moreover, Wang Yi's statement in Munich is not the only signal of this kind.
On March 11, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that China is ready to work with the international community and continue to play a constructive role in the political settlement of the "Ukrainian crisis".
A little earlier, the Chinese Phoenix TV channel first broadcast a story about the fighting in the Kharkiv region by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This is a significant event because, before that, China had only broadcast stories about the war from the Russian side.
But what does this mean in practice?
In the case of Wang Yi's statement and other similar gestures, China has sided with Europe to tear it away from the United States, Daryna Hoch, a fellow at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and a China expert, told RBC-Ukraine.
“A split NATO is very important for China. And this is a good opportunity for them to use this paradigm shift in US politics,” she said.
Ultimately, however, China's position will be determined by a broader context in which Russia's war against Ukraine is only one element. Much more important is the relationship with the new US in the Trump era.
China and United States
In China, Trump's return to the White House was greeted without much concern. However, to a certain extent, the US President surprised Beijing, Daryna Hoch told the agency. He immediately raised customs tariffs on imports from China from 10 to 20%. Beijing responded in kind by increasing its tariffs on many American agricultural products by 10-15%. Another issue on the table is the forced sale of the Chinese company TikTok in the United States.
Finally, there is the ongoing tension over Taiwan. China considers it its territory. The United States does not formally recognize Taiwan as a separate independent state, but it supports it in every way possible, including militarily, because it is home to chip manufacturing facilities that are critical to the United States. However, an open conflict over the island is unlikely at this time
"Publicly, the Chinese authorities say that "this is one country, we are one people," and about reconciliation. Therefore, most people in mainland China do not believe that there could be an attack on their compatriots. In addition, for a country that positions itself as a defender of the world order, an attack would lead to a deterioration in its image," Hoch said.
Xi Jinping and Donald Trump, 2017 (photo: Getty Images)
In the end, the United States has successfully built a strategy to contain China in the Taiwanese direction. This Washington doctrine is called strategic ambiguity. It consists of the tacit understanding or expectation that if China uses force against Taiwan, the United States may use its military potential to defend the island. In practice, however, this formula leaves a lot of room for maneuver.
Trump and Xi have already spoken on the phone, and a face-to-face meeting is expected in the foreseeable future. However, there is no particular initiative on the part of China. “Beijing might believe they are giving Trump enough rope to hang himself, and frankly seeing his actions as a windfall for them,” Dr. Dean Karalekas, a researcher specializing in Asia-Pacific security based in Taiwan, told RBC-Ukraine.
For example, there are already opinions in Europe that the United States is no longer a reliable ally and that they can restore some stability by relying on cooperation with China.
“Moreover, as corrupt as USAID obviously was, turning off the taps opened up a whole new raft of potential client states for the PRC, which has always been more than happy to provide even unsavory regimes with aid money in exchange for political favors,” Karalekas said.
In the long run, Trump's policy may even play in China's favor, not only in Europe but also closer to its borders.
“If we talk about a more strategic dimension, Trump's isolationist policy, on the contrary, helps China. They (the Chinese - ed.) show: look, Trump is now abandoning Europe, so why will he continue to help Japan or South Korea, where USAID programs have also been canceled,” Daryna Hoch told the publication.
Russian card in game with United States
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russia has been a kind of suitcase without a handle for China - it is difficult to carry and there is a risk of running into Western sanctions, but to some extent profitable. Russia is an important source of resources and some technologies for China. But more importantly, the Kremlin's actions allow it to create problems for the United States. Therefore, Chinese peace initiatives could not be called truly peaceful.
China had previously put forward its initiatives to end Russia's war against Ukraine. However, there were reasonable suspicions that it was playing along with the Kremlin. In particular, on the eve of the Peace Summit in the summer of 2024, Beijing put forward an alternative peace plan to the Ukrainian one. The President of Ukraine even stated that China was pressuring some countries to refuse to attend the summit.
“In Beijing’s view, the best outcome is a cold-war scenario in Ukraine, with a sort of “hybrid peace” that maintains the ongoing potential to conflagrate into full-blown kinetic action at any time—something like the state of affairs on the Korean Peninsula,” Karalekas told RBC-Ukraine.
According to him, if Russia wins a clear victory, it will not benefit China. Such a victory could push Putin to a wider European war or even to take steps against China in the Far East. On the other hand, the Chinese leadership does not want Putin to lose because it would cause political chaos in Russia itself and also threaten China's interests in Central Asia. So a hybrid state of neither peace nor war in Ukraine would be ideal for Beijing - it keeps NATO busy and distracts it from expanding its activities in Asia.
“Xi wasn’t crazy about Russia’s importation of cannon fodder from North Korea, for example, because it opened what up till now has been a regional conflict, far from China’s shores, to a situation with an Asia-Pacific component, risking calling NATO’s attention to the region,” Karalekas told the agency.
In his opinion, China should not play any role in the current peace process in Ukraine, as it is not even close to being an honest mediator.
Is it possible to separate Russia from China?
In an interview with the conservative US agency Breitbart News on February 25, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed concern about Russia's growing dependence on China. He made it clear that Washington wants to prevent Moscow from becoming Beijing's permanent junior partner. This maneuver is reminiscent of what the United States did in the 1970s under President Nixon, disengaging China from Russia.
Current attempts to separate Russia from China are called the reverse Nixon strategy. But there are several fundamental reasons why this is difficult to implement, experts interviewed by the publication noted.
The Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline from Russia to China (photo: gazprom.ru)
First, the worldviews of both capitals are similar. “China and Russia stand shoulder-to-shoulder — along with Iran — in opposing the Western-led liberal international order. Russia under Putin has no more interest in becoming a responsible international stakeholder than China does; rather, they both seek to subvert that order, in favor of something more to their liking—something more China-centric,” Karalekas told RBC-Ukraine.
According to the expert, ironically, Trump's actions over the past few weeks may have done more damage to the liberal international order than years of maneuvering by China itself.
Secondly, the economies of Russia and China are highly interconnected. According to Reuters, the volume of mutual trade between the two countries in 2024 amounted to more than $244 billion. At the same time, Beijing has an advantage over Moscow. China's share in Russia's foreign trade as of 2024 is estimated to have been about 33.8%. For comparison, Russia's share in China's foreign trade is much smaller - only 3.9%.
Thirdly, China expects that Russia's turn toward the United States, even if it happens, will not last long, as Trump has only been in office for four years. After him, representatives of the Democratic Party may return to power with a completely different position on Russia and China. At the same time, Russian and Chinese leaders have been ruling for decades and can afford more long-term and certain planning.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on February 27 that, even in times of significant global change, Sino-Russian relations remained stable and that any attempts by the United States to drive a wedge between them were absolutely futile.
But on a less official level, Chinese commentators are feeling a bit nervous. Even if the US plan to strategically disengage Russia from China fails, the Kremlin has some options to make life difficult for Beijing, from sharing intelligence to providing access to rare earth materials, which Russia has already offered the United States.
On February 25, the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, an influential think tank affiliated with China's Ministry of National Security, published an analysis criticizing the recent rapprochement between the United States and Russia. The document warns that peace talks without the participation of key stakeholders such as Ukraine will accelerate global instability and weaken international organizations. This is an indirect criticism of Trump's initiatives to end Russia's war against Ukraine.
In this context, it is also interesting to see the estimates of the Chinese artificial intelligence Deep Seek, which works on data from Chinese media that has been censored by the authorities. The Japanese agency Jiji Press asked him about the long-term prospects for Sino-Russian cooperation.
Deep Seek acknowledged potential contradictions in regions such as Central Asia and warned that future Russian leaders may not be as united with China as Putin is today. According to the agency, this shows that even in the controlled Chinese discourse, there is a recognition that Russia's loyalty is not guaranteed.
China's long game and prospects for Ukraine
“In China, this is all perceived as something too fast for China's political strategy, which is stretched over centuries,” Daryna Hoch told the agency. Beijing is not inclined to respond quickly to the US actions. At the same time, its long-term strategy is aimed at reducing risks and diversifying contacts, even with Russia.
One component of this strategy is the expansion of the BRICS grouping. Initially, this club of states included only the 5 most powerful economies that were not part of the so-called collective West. China, Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa. In 2024, they were joined by Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. There is also the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, under which China is building infrastructure in many countries of the Global South and thus binds them economically.
The situation with Europe is more complicated. There is an economic interest on both sides - China and the European Union are already each other's largest trading partners. This cooperation will continue to develop. By the way, in February, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi paid a landmark visit to Europe on this occasion. But they proved that they, too, are ready to fiercely defend their interests.
British and Chinese Foreign Ministers David Lammy and Wang Yi (Photo: Getty Images)
Chinese companies, often subsidized by the state, are flooding the European market with cheap goods, and Europe is fighting this with trade tariffs. China considers this to be protectionism, which contradicts the principles of free trade.
The same applies to Ukraine. Beijing is currently Kyiv's largest trading partner. Back in 2011, Kyiv and Beijing signed a strategic partnership agreement, but it has never been filled with political content and remains purely economic. Although the Ukrainian side has begun to privately hint at a desire to strengthen contacts, this is more likely in the context of broader European cooperation with China.
“If these economic ties are strengthened, it is very likely that with China's pragmatic economy-first approach, this can be realized. Especially since China has already stated that it is ready to participate in Ukraine's reconstruction,” Hoch summarized.
However, there are still too many unknowns in this equation. The main intrigue is whether the United States will finally spoil relations with Europe. Judging by the dynamics of the negotiations and the constant change of mood in Trump's team, no one knows the answer to this question.
Sources: Statements by Ukrainian, American, and Chinese politicians, Jiji Press, Reuters, Bloomberg, China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, and comments by Daryna Hoch and Dean Karalekas.
