Meeting President Vladimir Putin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Uzbekistan, Xi Jinping struggled not to squirm on Thursday.
Xi doesn’t dislike the Russian leader. Rather, the Chinese leader’s concern is to avoid being associated with Putin’s war in Ukraine, especially now that Ukrainian counteroffensives portend Russia’s longer-term defeat. Xi knows that China’s oft-stated claim of sovereign independence, its fundamental excuse for why other nations should ignore its human rights policies and claims over Taiwan, aren’t terribly credible when Xi retains such a close relationship with the leader now shredding that principle in Ukraine. Such hypocrisy could undermine China’s strategy for global hegemony: Its degrading of the Western alliance structure by fraying the European Union and the U.S. foreign policy cooperation.
The leaders’ meeting reflected this dynamic.
Very likely responding to an explicit Chinese request that he do so, Putin gave a nod to Xi’s concerns over Ukraine. Offering his appreciation for China’s “balanced position” on Ukraine, Putin added, “We understand your questions and concerns in this regard.” But few Western media outlets appear to have noticed what Putin said next. The Russian leader committed that “we will explain in detail our position on this issue” — and then added, with a touch of snark, “although we have spoken about this before.” Putin enjoys invalidating and humiliating his foreign counterparts, much like the instances when he makes them wait. Here, he wants to show he’s equal with the Chinese leader and not entirely grateful at having to offer a Ukraine-related hat tip to his concerns. Putin would much prefer the buddy-buddy rhetoric employed by one of Xi’s deputies in a separate meeting last week.
The stagecraft of the Xi-Putin meeting further evinced the former’s PR concerns.
Sitting across from one another at a significant distance, only a vast floral decoration was left to add warmth to the Sino-Russian interchange. This social-distanced setting was in stark contrast with the leaders’ other meetings at the SCO summit. As Moscow’s Moskovskij Komsomolets newspaper observed, both leaders gave far closer and more affectionate audiences in their other meetings. Putin sat side-by-side with the leaders of Pakistan, Iran, and Kyrgyzstan, even hugging the latter. And although Xi’s meetings with other leaders involved mask-wearing and greater separation, Xi did stand closer to other leaders and offer more smiles than he did with Putin.
This cuts to a basic truth: The Sino-Russian relationship is not an alliance so much as a collaboration between two leaders who want to weaken the West in order to extend their independent imperial interests. Xi’s rhetoric underlines this point, emphasizing the catch-22 that Putin’s Russia now poses for China. Xi told Putin that their two nations should “inject stability into a turbulent world … safeguard the security interests of the region, and safeguard the common interests of developing countries and emerging market countries.”
But some might say that “stability,” and efforts to “safeguard” the “common interests of developing countries and emerging market countries,” aren’t terribly well-served by Russia’s rather “turbulent” invasion of Ukraine. Xi’s fear is that European leaders like German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron might finally have to admit as much and thus take a harsher stance toward Russia’s most important partner.
