Last week, a Sino-Russian naval flotilla circled the western coast of Japan’s Honshu (central/main) island.
This action reflects China’s fear of Western alignment against it. It also illustrates the rising influence of nationalist pride in Beijing. At the same time, the flotilla evinces Russia’s desire to attract greater Chinese trade. But for both nations, this activity carries significant risks.
As CNN’s Brad Lendon first noted, this naval escapade is significant. It was clearly designed to intimidate Japan and send a message to the United States over its freedom of navigation activities in the South China Sea. China may also hope that the exercise will deter Western powers from escalating their challenge to its more destabilizing activities and human rights abuses, the basic thinking being that the West will be reluctant to risk a simultaneous confrontation with both Moscow and Beijing.
Xi Jinping’s primary objective is to broadcast political strength and naval prestige. The supremely powerful Chinese leader is under increasing domestic pressure to take a more robust stance against U.S. challenges to Chinese foreign policy. Taiwan’s strengthening international relationships are causing particular frustration in Beijing. Military displays such as this one allow Xi to sate the domestic clamor for action. Conducting this activity against Japan carries special significance. After all, the former imperial overseer remains deeply unpopular with many Chinese. Images of the People’s Liberation Army-Navy flying the flag in the Western Pacific offers pitch-perfect Chinese Communist Party propaganda. Xi and the Party appear to be bold and in control.
Putin’s interest is simpler: money.
While China accounts for a relatively small element of Russia’s total export market, its proportion is growing. In 2020, Sino-Russian trade exceeded $100 billion. Russian exports also grew year-on-year in the first quarter of 2021. Putin has a particular opportunity in the face of Chinese energy shortages, with energy already the centerpiece of Russia’s export market.
Yet Putin knows that displays of military coordination are of outsize value to Beijing. That’s because they allow China to present a narrative countering rising U.S. alliance structures such as the Quad. In turn, Putin will hope to win sustained Chinese arms purchases from Beijing, even as China’s domestic arms base rapidly improves. Similar to last week’s action, in 2019, a Russian warship nearly rammed the USS Chancellorsville as it operated in the Philippine Sea in an effort to curry favor with Beijing.
Still, the flotilla carries risks for Beijing and Moscow.
A Russian statement claimed the flotilla will “maintain peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region” (note the use of Asia-Pacific in contrast to the U.S.’s “Indo-Pacific” regional descriptor). A Chinese statement described the flotilla as an effort to “jointly maintain international and regional strategic stability.”
But that message won’t translate very well. Indeed, it may significantly undermine China’s diplomatic effort to woo new Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. China wants to persuade Kishida, who is more dovish than his predecessor, that Japan would benefit from a focus on economic ties, as opposed to Tokyo’s increased support for U.S. security efforts in the region. But when the PLA is literally half-encircling Japan, the “let’s cooperate” rhetoric rings a little hollow. Simultaneously arrogant language from Beijing doesn’t help. Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday warned Japan not to “step out of line.” This naval display will increase pressure on Kishida to bolster Japan’s projection of military power alongside its most powerful ally, the U.S.
Xi also risks indirectly encouraging European powers to support U.S. efforts to increase NATO’s focus on China. This is particularly true of Eastern and Central European powers that are growing more skeptical of Beijing and are reflexively concerned about Russian security threats. In that regard, Xi risks undermining his few remaining allies in the European Union, such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban. Orban will have a tougher time selling his colleagues on Xi when China’s military is buddying up to Europe’s primary adversary.
Russia must also weigh the risks involved here. Putin’s rising support for China may encourage the Biden administration to take a tougher stance against him in vulnerable areas such as Russia’s energy sector and the Kremlin’s access to Western financial markets. Of course, considering his current strategy toward Moscow, Biden may do nothing.
Putin is certainly lending credibility to the U.S. call on its allies to partner against China’s excesses. The flotilla cuts, for example, against French President Emmanuel Macron’s claim that European interests are compatible with close dealings with China and Russia. Macron centers this argument on his call for European “strategic autonomy.” Yet as Macron calls for closer ties with China (as he did in a call with Xi on Tuesday) and the removal of sanctions imposed on Russia over its 2014 seizure of Crimea, “strategic autonomy” appears much more like “serious appeasement.” Put simply, it seems a foolish proposition in places such as Canberra, New Delhi, London, Tallinn, Tokyo, Oslo, Warsaw, and Washington.
One thing is for certain. The waters of the Western Pacific are increasingly defined by geopolitical scheming and fraught with military risk.
