China’s Ukraine quagmire

What's next in U.S.-China relations.

Mar 17, 2022 View in browser   By Phelim Kine In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Yang Jiechi, at left, meets with U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan at right in Rome, Italy, March 14, 2022. | Jin Mamengni/Xinhua via AP Hi, China Watchers. Today we'll look at whether Beijing can continue to walk its tightrope on Russia and Ukraine and whether it risks punishing economic sanctions if it provides material support for Moscow's aggression. We'll also dissect a defense of the Russia embrace from China's envoy in D.C., spot the sunset of the "zero-Covid strategy ," and unpack the mechanics of Beijing's soft power push in our "One Book, Three Questions" section — scroll down or you'll miss it! Got a book to recommend? Tell me about it at pkine@politico.com. Let's get to it. — Phelim When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001 — turning its attention to war and nation building in Central Asia — China's economy was roughly the size of Indonesia's today. Now it's 18 times larger, and on track to become the world's biggest in as little as 10 years. No wonder then that Beijing sees strategic advantage in Washington getting sucked into another generational global conflict thousands of miles away from its borders. Back then, China actively supported America's War on Terror as a pretext to intensify repression of Muslim Uyghurs to quell dissent in Xinjiang while opting for spectator status to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today though, China is learning the hard way that it can no longer remain effectively neutral in geopolitical conflicts. As Russian troops lay waste to Ukrainian cities, China has tried to walk a tightrope: abstaining from condemnations of Moscow, maintaining trade with its neighbor and professing a bland sympathy for the thousands of civilian deaths thus far. But over the weekend, Washington revealed intelligence that appeared expressly designed to make China choose a side, telling reporters that Russia had requested Beijing's material assistance in the Ukraine war effort through provision of unspecified economic and military assistance. A senior U.S. official said the Chinese government had "responded" to that request, but there are no details as to the nature of that response. Russia denies that allegation and China has dismissed it as "disinformation," while refusing to categorically state that it won't provide such assistance. China has weaponry, including attack drones , that Russia could use to its advantage in Ukraine, which has led to warnings from the Biden administration and Congress that the U.S. won't hesitate to sanction China for supplying Moscow with arms. The administration's dilemma is that China is the world's second-largest economy and the origin point of countless global supply chains. Unlike Russia, whose relative unimportance to the function of Western economies made it relatively easier to sanction, China is a dominant player in everything from electrical appliances to shipping to solar panels. That could undermine a unified response on sanctions and provide China the ability to inflict painful economic counterattacks. "Without getting into details, I'm aware of instances in the last few weeks when China said no to Russian requests [for economic and military assistance] and I would hope that continues," House Foreign Affairs Committee member Rep. TOM MALINOWSKI (D-N.J.) told China Watcher. "The administration has been pretty clear that we would not hesitate to sanction Chinese entities that attempt to undermine the sanctions we have imposed on Russia." The Biden administration is unambiguous that China risks damaging economic sanctions from the world's largest economies if it opts to bolster Russia's war effort. "If China were to decide to be an economic provider [to Russia] … they only make up 15 to 20 percent of the world's economy," White House spokesperson JEN PSAKI said Monday . "The G-7 countries make up more than 50 percent. So, there are a range of tools at our disposal in coordination with our European partners should we need to use them." But using those tools could reap blowback from China. "It will be much more difficult to inflict 'severe costs' on the economic giant China than Russia. We cannot be effective unless we gain allied unity, especially Europe and Japan, and the American business community and people are willing to absorb pain," former U.S. Ambassador to China WINSTON LORD said in a statement. "With those two prerequisites I think we could seriously hurt the Chinese economy, given its enormous reliance on the world economy." Read more here. Qin Gang for the (Russian) Defense On Tuesday, The Washington Postpublished an op-ed by China's ambassador to the U.S., QIN GANG, explaining his country's position on Russia's Ukraine invasion. I'll boil it down for you in two sentences: The U.S. is "slinging mud at China" despite its "foreign policy of peace" and global role as a "staunch champion of justice." U.S. sanction threats are unacceptable, Taiwan is ours, peace talks are desirable and humanitarian aid essential. China Watcher asked a quartet of experts for their take on Qin's messaging — AYNNE KOKAS, author of "Trafficking Data: How China is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty"; KENTON THIBAUT, resident fellow for China at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab; DIANA FU , nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution; and JAMES BELLACQUA, principal research scientist in CNA's China & Indo-Pacific Security Affairs division. We've distilled highlights of their views below, edited for length and clarity.  KOKAS: [The op-ed] demonstrates a softening of the language with which China is supporting Russia. Obviously, there's an effort to play both sides but there's stronger effort to emphasize China's affiliation with the global trading system, global alliances and with the people of Ukraine than we saw in the beginning of this conflict where there was still the foregrounding of the Feb. 4 declaration between [Russian President VLADIMIR] PUTIN and [Chinese President] XI JINPING of this 'alliance without limits.'" It looks much more like China is looking out for China's long-term interests, rather than trying to build up this new alliance with Russia. THIBAUT: Chinese people are invested in this idea of China as peaceful and a peacemaker. So, they've adopted this really awkward strategy, which you can see in Qin's op-ed, of saying they support Ukrainian sovereignty, but also Russia's legitimate security interests, and they kind of pivot to place the blame [for the invasion] on the U.S. and NATO expansionism. So, we see in the language Qin uses that they're trying to paint the war as this kind of unfortunate outcome of a security dilemma that was created by the United States, rather than an act of Russian aggression. The Taiwan mention … is to socialize the view at any chance they can get that Taiwan is not a sovereign or independent country like Ukraine, which lays the groundwork for a potential eventual move by China [against Taiwan]. FU: Beijing is trying to maintain strategic ambiguity: It cannot condemn Russia directly, so it condemns foreign interference in a sovereign country's domestic affairs. By the same logic, Beijing is also warning the U.S. and the world that it considers, and will always consider, Taiwan as part of the PRC's domestic affairs. The messaging to D.C. is clear: Should the U.S. government ever veer from its long-standing strategic ambiguity on the one-China policy, there will be a price to pay. BELLACQUA: Qin's piece is part of a larger effort by Beijing to deflect criticism by positioning China as a neutral and impartial observer that is concerned over the deteriorating situation in Ukraine and by shifting the focus of public discussion with respect to China's stance on the war away from Moscow's culpability and on to territory in which Beijing is more comfortable. One example of this is Qin's attempt to highlight China's efforts to make constructive proposals to resolve problems in non-controversial areas where there is broad international agreement. Examples include his statements professing Beijing's support for a negotiated settlement to the crisis and Beijing's six-point proposal for preventing a humanitarian catastrophe. It is noteworthy that Ambassador Qin's piece does not say anything critical of Moscow. TRANSLATING WASHINGTON — BLINKEN SLAMS CHINA'S UKRAINE INVASION STANCE: Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN declared Wednesday that China is "on the wrong side of history" in its alignment with Russia's Ukraine invasion. "The fact that [China] has not stood strongly against it, that it has not pronounced itself against this aggression, flies in the face of China's commitments as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council … so we're looking to China to speak out, to speak up, and to be very clear," Blinken said in anNPR interview. — DOJ CHARGES CHINESE DISSIDENT HARASSERS: The Justice Department announced criminal charges Wednesday against five individuals for allegedly harassing Chinese dissidents in the U.S. at the instigation of the Chinese government, including an attempt to drive a Democratic candidate in New York out of his race for U.S. Congress, POLITICO's JOSH GERSTEIN reported. One of the criminal complaints alleges that a Chinese citizen, QIMING LIN, hired a private investigator to disrupt the congressional bid of a former U.S. Army chaplain who was a participant in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Court records don't name the candidate but he appears to be XIONG YAN , a Brooklyn resident running in the Democratic primary for New York's 1st congressional district, and who previously considered a run from Long Island. — CUSTOMS: LI-NING LINKED TO FORCED LABOR: U.S. Customs and Border Protectionannounced Tuesday that it is detaining all imports of products produced by China's Li-Ning Sporting Goods based on evidence the company "uses North Korean labor in its supply chain." U.S. law forbids imports of North Korean-produced goods without proof that they weren't produced by forced labor. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson ZHAO LIJIAN on Wednesdaycriticized the CBP decision as U.S. "long arm jurisdiction." Li-Ning is already under scrutiny by GOP lawmakers for endorsement contracts with National Basketball Association players due to the firm's connections to forced labor in Xinjiang.   — U.N. AMBASSADOR DENOUNCES CHINA'S BIOWEAPON 'DISINFORMATION': U.S.ambassador to the United Nations LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELDlashed out Friday at Russian and Chinese efforts to dilute criticism of Russia's Ukraine invasion withspurious allegations of U.S. bioweapons facilities in that country. "Russia is attempting to use the Security Council to legitimize disinformation and deceive people to justify President Putin's war of choice against the Ukrainian people. And China, too, has been spreading disinformation in support of Russia's outrageous claims," Thomas-Greenfield said. Zhao, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, was unmoved. "If the concerns are 'disinformation', why doesn't the US release detailed materials to prove its innocence?"he said Monday. — U.S.: CHINA SHOULD CONDEMN NK MISSILES: SUNG KIM, the U.S. special representative for North Korea, last weekurged his Chinese counterpart, LIU XIAOMING, to condemn North Korea's recent intercontinental ballistic missile tests. Kim also called on Liu to leverage China's influence on North Korea "to cease its destabilizing activity and return to dialogue."Liu responded by pressing the U.S. "to show sincerity and flexibility … so as to prevent the tension [on the Korean Peninsula] from escalating." North Korea is on a missile testing spree , with 10 missile or projectile launches so far this year, outpacing the total number in all of 2021. Hot from the China Watchersphere Tom Holland attends an event for "Uncharted" on February 11, 2022 in Paris, France. | Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images — VIETNAM MIFFED ABOUT MOVIE MAP: Sony's new action film "Uncharted" won't hit Hanoi theaters thanks toVietnamese government objections over a scene with a map that depicts China's contested South China Sea claims. The map portrays the " nine-dash line" which asserts China's dubious "historical maritime rights" more than 2,000 miles from China's coast to within hundreds of miles of Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in 2016declared as "invalid" China's nine-dash line historical claims. The film opened this week in China where censors were likely pleased by the filmmakers' choice of Asian maps. "[This is] a clear display of Vietnam's assertion of its maritime sovereignty as China takes advantage of the world's attention on Ukraine to ramp up its unilateral actions including the announcement of military drills in the Gulf of Tonkin and warning regional states against 'external interference' in negotiations with ASEAN over theSouth China Seas Code of Conduct," LIEN-HANG T. NGUYEN , Dorothy Borg Chair in the History of the United States and East Asia at Columbia University, told China Watcher. — AUSTRALIA AND CHINA CLASH ON TAIWAN: Australian Defense Minister PETER DUTTONsounded the alarm last week about China's Indo-Pacific intentions. "If people think that [China's] ambitions within the Indo-Pacific are restricted just to Taiwan and there won't be knock-on impacts if we don't provide a deterrent effect … then they don't understand the lessons of history," Dutton said. That reaped a sharpChinese response. "Anyone who makes troubles [sic] on the Taiwan question will suffer the worst consequences in the end," warned Sr. Col. TAN KEFEI, Chinese Ministry of National Defense spokesperson. — HONG KONG DEMANDS NGO SHUTTER WEBSITE: The Hong Kong government has told the nonprofit human rights organization Hong Kong Watch toshutter its website or risk prosecution under the territory's draconian National Security Law. In a letter, the Hong Kong Police Force's National Security Department warned BENEDICT ROGERS , the group's U.K.-based chief executive, that he faced prosecution and up to three years in prison for a website that police allege is "lobbying foreign countries to impose sanctions or blockade and engage in other hostile activities against the People's Republic of China." — REPORT: DIGITAL YUAN MAY UNDO DOLLAR: The Chinese government's introduction of a digital yuan as a domestic alternative to paper currency poses a threat to the U.S. dollar's global dominance, according to a new report from the Hoover Institution think tank. "Over time, the spread of the e-CNY might diminish the role of the dollar as the world's reserve currency and undermine the ability of the United States to deploy financial sanctions against rogue international actors," warns the report, "Digital Currencies: The U.S., China, and the World at a Crossroads." Translating China Health care workers wearing personal protective equipment attend to a patient at a temporary holding area at the Caritas Medical Centre hospital on March 01, 2022 in Hong Kong. | Anthony Kwan/Getty Images — CHINA'S ZERO COVID SUNSET: China's "zero-Covid strategy" may have met its match in the Omicron variant. The strategy hinges on a rigorous system of quarantine, and testing and isolation of positive cases, as well as community lockdowns and travel restrictions to mitigate viral spread. That approach has been wildly successful from a public health perspective: Johns Hopkins University data indicates that China has recordedfewer than 9,000 deaths from Covid-19, compared to almost a million in the U.S. But the highly infectious Omicron BA.2 variant is testing China's capacity to contain the virus. There are now outbreaks in more thana dozen provinces that have locked down residential neighborhoods and workplaces. Production lineshave ground to a halt at assembly plants for Volkswagen, Toyota and the Apple iPhone manufacturer Foxconn. Chinese Vice Premier SUN CHUNLAN on Sunday urged "utmost efforts in testing, quarantine, and treatment to stamp out all community infections soonest." That's likely unsustainable. "With Omicron they're trying to stop the wind — you can divert it … but you can't stop it, and I think [China is] finally recognizing that now," MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told China Watcher. "What they can do is try to limit its impact by getting people vaccinated as quickly as possible … and they have to be prepared for a much increased health care delivery challenge given that they have so few ICU beds per 100,000 population compared to the U.S." — CHINESE STATE MEDIA UKRAINE INVASION GROUPTHINK: The Chinese government has parroted Russia's Orwellian description of its Ukraine invasion as a "special military operation," blamed the U.S. as the invasion's "culprit" and rationalized that aggression as an expression of the Kremlin's "legitimate" perceptions of regional insecurity. An analysis of Chinese media and online content published Saturday by the University of Hong Kong's China Media Project indicates thatpro-Russian narrative dominates reporting of the war. "Voices critical of Putin, or even calling for peace, continue to be systematically removed from Chinese social media platforms, and content critical of Ukraine and the West, particularly the United States, proliferates," concluded CMP director DAVID BANDURSKI. But some Chinese media outlets, including the Shanghai-based Xinmin Weekly and the Caixin Weekly news magazine are bucking that propaganda line by calling the invasion a "war" and declaring Russia the aggressor. "A reminder, however faint, that professional reporting, and more creative thinking about stories, still persists in China even under the thick cloud cover of domestic media control and the opportunistic pushing of pro-Russian and anti-West propaganda," Bandurski said. One Book, Three Questions The cover of the book "Chinese Soft Power" is pictured. | Cambridge University Press, Global China Elements Series The Book: "Chinese Soft Power" The Author: MARIA REPNIKOVA is a scholar of global communication at Georgia State University, with a comparative focus on China and Russia. What is the most important takeaway from your book? China doesn't strictly delineate between hard (and especially economic) power and cultural resources. China deploys a degree of material enticement alongside most of its "soft power" cultural initiatives. Chinese media in Africa emphasize China's economic success story. China's low-cost education opportunities, scholarships and elite trainings have transformed China into one of the primary international destinations for students and officials from the Global South. The ubiquity of Chinese companies in Africa has made Confucius Institutes popular among young students. At the same time, Chinese state-owned media channels tend to be treated with suspicion by global audiences, and China's messaging about its "efficient" political system is buried in critical stories about China's human rights record in Western press. What was the most surprising thing you learned while researching and writing this book? Much of China's soft power rhetoric is about domestic patriotism, as well as cultural and ideological cohesion. Chinese public diplomacy initiatives, such as major diplomatic spectacles like the Olympics, also tend to target domestic audiences as much as international observers. In thinking about the success or failure of Chinese soft power, we should ask not only whether the initiatives change perceptions of China internationally, but also whether they bolster pride and nationalism at home. What does your book tell us about the trajectory and future of U.S.-China relations? China perceives the United States as the prime competitor for soft power and as the key hindrance for China's attainment of a positive global image. China is likely to continue to deliberately compete with the United States and to increasingly use anti-U.S. narratives in the crafting of its own image and diplomatic policy. We see this very much in the past week in context of the war in Ukraine. The rhetoric of Chinese diplomats on the Ukraine crisis has emphasized the underlying responsibility of the U.S. and NATO in pushing Russia toward military operations, and the double standards of the United States when it comes to waging its own destructive wars in the Middle East whilst accusing Russia of unjustified invasion in Ukraine. Thanks to: Ben Pauker, Matt Kaminski, digital producer Setota Hailemariam, Josh Gerstein and editor John Yearwood. Do you have tips? Chinese-language stories we might have missed? Would you like to contribute to China Watcher or comment on this week's items? Email us at chinawatcher@politico.com.   Follow us

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