Saturday 4 March 2023

What's in Xi Zinping's mind re Ukraine?

I don't know how clever Xi Zinping is, but I do know he is obsessed with power both for himself and for the People's Republic of China. So anything he decides to do about the war in Ukraine will have little to do with bringing peace and stability per se but will be exclusively about how an end to the war will benefit China and his presidency. If he is seriously considering arming Russia, what would be his main objectives? Most people would say he would arm his partner and friend Putin in order to demonstrate that the long term future will be China and Russia versus the West. But that's only partly right, because Xi knows that if he does arm Russia there will be consequences for China's relations with the US and Europe which would all be negative. In my view Xi's main objective would be to give Russia an overwhelming advantage on the battlefield in Ukraine to force Zelensky and his western backers to sue for peace at any cost. And the cost would be very high for Kyiv, and for Washington too. If the Beijing maestro achieves that objective then he would be able to dictate the terms of the peace settlement and show the world that only Chinese military power and diplomacy can bring the war to an end. The US would be pushed aside, under this thinking, and Beijing would reign supreme. I'm not saying this is what is going to happen but I bet it's what Xi is thinking and hoping for. And if I'm right, then the US intelligence agencies were spot on, China IS thinking very seriously about arming Russia and might well go ahead and do it, not so much to help Moscow but to put Beijing in general, and Xi in particular, in the forefront of global politics.

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