’We’re going through changes’ – What Xi meant when he spoke to Putin
‘We’re going through changes’ – What Xi meant when he spoke to Putin
WRITTEN BY DR KERRY BROWN
27 April 2023
“Change is coming that hasn't happened in 100 years and we are driving this change together,” said President Xi Jinping of China when bidding farewell to Russia’s Vladimir Putin during his March visit to Moscow. A moment like this proves two new informal rules of global geopolitics today. The first is that for some reason, Chinese elite leaders will always, by accident or design, say the least helpful thing at the most inopportune moment. The second is that, very much by design rather than accident, there is an audience watching in the outside world, which will place the very darkest interpretations on what has just been said. Putting it bluntly, Chinese leaders these days, at least in their statements, give ample ammunition to their many critics and enemies.
If there was a triggering statement to make, in the worst possible context, to the worst possible interlocutor, this was it. America and others have already formed suspicions that China is supportive of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and manipulating the situation to its geopolitical advantage. Many see these comments as ‘chilling’ confirmation that Beijing and Moscow regard themselves as enforcers of a new autocratic norm, which is aimed at proactively reshaping the global architecture of decision-making, and aggressively pushing back against and even seeking to take down democracy.
Xi’s comments, and the context in which they were made, are certainly alarming. But that is largely because they are also very ambiguous and pray on fears rather than supply real information of concrete plans and intent. They say there will be change, but not what type. This is true of a lot of high-level Chinese statements these days, from the idea of common destiny, which is interpreted as China deciding the direction of travel and everyone else having to follow, to the language around win-win and the Belt and Road Initiative.
The times they are always a-changing
In the case of Xi’s comments in Moscow, surely one can affirm change just as a statement of fact, and without saying explicitly whether these changes are going to be good or bad. That would be a bit like the Bob Dylan song of a half-century ago, ‘The Times They Are A-Changing’. They might also just be very vague, generic words chucked out at a so-called partner to express support and mean nothing more — expressions of fraternal support. One thing they are very likely not to be is a Chinese affirmation that Russia today is equal in this epoch-making process and deserves the same status as its larger partner. Considering Xi’s statement, we need to think more deeply about what he means by ‘change’ before we start to condemn it as an overt, hostile signal of intent.
In this context, the one positive Russia offers to China is that it does not belong to the Western bloc. Xi’s seemingly warm words to Putin are an acknowledgement that his enemy’s enemy is his friend.
On a very humdrum level, when Xi talks like this he is just stating the obvious. The world is, whether he likes it or not, undergoing profound change. China’s economic and military rise, and its current geopolitical status, are unprecedented in modern history and indeed since the early 19th century. Qing, then Republican, and finally the People’s Republic were significantly weaker than Western countries. China was such a marginal country that in 1944 during the Second World War Winston Churchill argued to his then Foreign Secretary that to say “that China is one of the world’s four Great Powers (the others being America, Russia, and the UK) is an absolute farce. I have told the President I would be reasonably polite about this American obsession”. Although that attitude lingered for a long time, it would be impossible to take this stance today.
China under Xi certainly sees itself as being in the vanguard of this era of great geopolitical change. The bottom line is that, with the world’s second-largest economy, a rising middle class, and a per capita GDP now taking it to middle-income status, it has never had a more prominent role — and never been more able to disprove Churchill’s cursory views of it. Even with its current domestic and economic woes, it has immense and growing influence and a sense of destiny.
New geopolitical reality
China shares with Russia a strong sense of resentment at the way that so much of the world’s decision-making architecture still resides in countries that it no longer sees as having the right to occupy the elevated position most of them acquired in the years after the Second World War. Chinese leaders, long before Xi, have been vociferous about their dislike of what they label Western hegemony. Insistence on multipolarity (and that means a stronger role for China) did not start under Xi — it dates back at least to the 1990s.
In this context, the one positive Russia offers to China is that it does not belong to the Western bloc. Xi’s seemingly warm words to Putin are an acknowledgement that his enemy’s enemy is his friend. From being a strong supporter of NATO in the 1970s when it was seen as a counterbalance against the Soviet threat, China today has moved from being sceptical about the security organisation to outright opposition. Beijing may have many reservations about Putin’s reckless, incompetent, and violent actions against Ukraine. But it will never support NATO having another platform by its involvement in Ukraine’s defence to build what China considers yet another episode in Western hegemony. Nor does it remotely subscribe to a narrative that would allow the West to declare that they have been victors, thus proving the value of their political and security systems.
Xi and Putin may well be part of this great change referred to somewhat abstractly in the Moscow comments. But whether Xi’s statement can be read as some declaration of their deep, strategic compatibility and common vision is a completely different matter. In a narrow sense, they are both averse to the current global order. But their capacity to change things, and bring about the change they want, are most likely very different. China, in particular, feels that it has the right, and the ability now, to ask for its own bespoke space and its specific kind of diplomacy. We see signs of this every day now, not just in its management of Russia, but in what it tried to achieve in the Middle East and its evolving role in Latin America and Africa. Russia is no doubt a major country, but it is in a different, more subsidiary category to China, and its international influence has been poisoned by the egregious way it has behaved over Ukraine. As one Chinese analyst speaking about this to me last month put it: China does not want the West to win, nor does it want Ukraine to lose. Its peace plan proposal issued in February was simply what it regarded as a blueprint for a draw.
How feasible that is remains open to debate. For China, there is much about Russia’s invasion that has not been helpful. It has created economic and political uncertainties internationally that China could well do without, as it concentrates on emerging from the impact of the pandemic. Beijing also does not remotely welcome Putin’s sinister threats to deploy nuclear weapons. But at a high level, for all the inflammatory intention and meaning imputed to Xi’s parting words to Putin, they were spelling out what China at least sees as the new geopolitical reality: a world with a different decision-making architecture and a different structure — one in which countries like China have a major role. That latter part is probably why it is not only the West that needs to pay attention, and perhaps worry a bit about what Xi said, but also Putin himself, because it is China that sees itself in charge of this change, and Russia as merely a follower.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Dr Kerry Brown is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute at King's College London. He is the author of many books on China, the most recent of which, ‘China Inc’ will be published this September by Bloomsbury Academic.
He will be a speaker at the Centro Studi Sulla Cina Contemporanea Summer School "The Rise of China in a Turbulent World - Alternative Perspectives” to be held in Reggio Emilia from 24-29 July 2023.
Program and Information on how to register is available here.
Image credit: kremlin.ru.