Shane Leary joins Miles Yu to discuss the recent summit between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in China. They analyze the two nations’ joint statement, the implications of their developing relationship, and the significance of Putin’s choice to visit the northeastern city of Harbin. Finally, they briefly preview the presidential inauguration in Taiwan.
China Insider is a weekly podcast project from Hudson Institute's China Center, hosted by Miles Yu, who provides weekly news that mainstream American outlets often miss, as well as in-depth commentary and analysis on the China challenge and the free world’s future.
Episode Transcript
This transcription is automatically generated and edited lightly for accuracy. Please excuse any errors.
Miles Yu:
Welcome to China Insider, a podcast from the Hudson Institute's China Center. I am Miles Yu, senior fellow and director of the China Center. Join me each week along with my colleague, Shane, Leary, for our analysis of the major events concerning China, China threat, and their implications to the US and beyond.
Shane Leary:
It's Tuesday, May 21st and today we're discussing Putin and Xi Jinping's recent summit in China, the joint statement the two leaders released in the broader geopolitical implications of the Russia-China partnership. We discussed the symbolism of Putin's decision to visit the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin, as well as under discussed points of tension between the two nations. We also briefly touch on the presidential inauguration in Taiwan, which Miles attended with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, but we'll have more to follow on that next week. Miles, how are you?
Miles Yu:
Very good, Shane.
Shane Leary:
Wonderful. So last week we spoke about Xi Jinping's European tour where he visited France, Serbia, and Hungary, in an effort to drive a wedge into the European Union. This week we saw Putin visit China and together the two leaders pledged a new era of partnership and of course condemned US hegemony. Before we get into the meat here, Miles, what is your read of the circumstances leading to this meeting? Why now?
Miles Yu:
Well, China has always been dreaming of a new era of a war order for decades now. I mean, there's nothing new about this, China's, the message has been consistent that is anti-West. It wants to create world order under the control of the Chinese Communist Party. This timing of this Putin Xi Jinping summit in Beijing in Harbin, by the way, it's very interesting. I think the most important agenda would be in response to what the sector of state Blinken this visit to Beijing a couple weeks ago so that the Putin wants to go there to assure there's no perfectly or no betrayal by the CCP in this substantial and meaningful material, financial, and economic assistance for Russia's war effort in Ukraine. So, for Xi Jinping, obviously Xi Jinping wants to solidify an anti-Western alliance with Russia. The language in their post-meeting statements were very, very clear and stark.
That message is very clear, is targeted United States by name, and portrays Russia and China as the victim of the current international order. So that's basically China's traditional pitch. But Xi Jinping also wants to avoid a united pushback and the backlash against the Russia China Alliance. So, the problem is you cannot have both ways. This is a perfect illustration of China's supreme opportunism, lack of principle on major international issues. You cannot say you support Russia's war in Ukraine, and in the meantime you are the victim of world, world aggression led by the United States. So, this is just a very, very typical of Chinese rhetoric and their mindset. Putin of course, is not just one of the usual rogue regimes leaders. He's extremely grateful for Xi Jinping to give him an international stage because Vladimir Putin is wanted by the International Criminal Court. So, his international engagement venues were very limited.
So, China normally has a long history of protecting rogue regime leaders shown by international community just like Vladimir Putin. So, when this situation occurs, China usually steps in to give folks like Putin a global stage, in other words, acts like a godfather. If you take a look at today's world, [inaudible] is the godfather that provides protection for Russia, Iran, and North Korea who are essentially Beijing's proxies. But then the question is how did China get along with its proxies? And there's also godfather has its own problem too with these privileges.
Shane Leary:
So, I want to latch on to something you said there. The way you describe Putin's motivation, obviously there's gratitude and it's a beneficial relationship for each, but there's an element of distrust there, maybe. People talk a lot about the No Limits partnership, but each country has their own interests ultimately. So, what do you think Putin's objectives are in this partnership and going to this meeting and how might those differ from Xi’s, or is there potential points of friction?
Miles Yu:
Putin is a student of history. He understands that China has a long record of sellout and double-dealings. I mean, if you think about this right, the two most important Moscow-Beijing summits in the history of the two all started with grandiosity and sworn eternity of friendship and solidarity, yet very strong. The two turned into mutual accusations and hostilities, even sworn enemies. I'm speaking of the 1959 Khruschev visit to China to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. And of course, the next one will be in 1989, because of Mikhail Gorbachev’s visit to China. Khrushchev visited China by way of Camp David after talking with President Eisenhower, they showed a lot of [inaudible] and celebratory rhetoric, but then this was during the height of the great forward, and Khrushchev was very critical of Chinese leadership practice over there.
And within months, this solidarity of eternity between the Soviet Union and China broke up and in a very bitter way. So, the Soviet Chinese split, there's no eternity to speak of whatsoever. The two countries become sort of for 20 some years eternal enemies. As a matter of fact, 1989 Gorbachev, the ultimate reformer who changed the Soviet regime, who sort of invigorated the Soviet society become a hero of Chinese students and pro-democracy activists. So, when he visited Beijing in May of 1989, almost exactly 35 years ago as we speak, and he became sort of the harbinger of the collapse of the Chinese Soviet inaudible] and assumed after that because of China's a massacre in Tiananmen Square, which triggered a major revolution in Europe and the Soviet Empire collapsed in the Eastern Bloc. And of course, China went on to consolidate its dictatorship of the [inaudible] supremacy of the Chinese country party. That's led to where we are. So, both visits, 1959 and 1990, ended in disaster. A totally different way of doing it. But I will say this is not very good, I'm not saying there is some kind of a necessary breakup in China and [inaudible], but the profound distrust is still there between China and Russia, between Putin and Xi Jinping.
Shane Leary:
And the other thing you said, which sort of caught my ear, is describing China or Xi Jinping as playing the role of the Godfather. And I've seen some reporting that Russian elites are sort of worried about their position increasingly as the junior partner in this relationship. Do you think within Xi Jinping's strategic aims, is there any room for an equal partnership or will they necessarily seek to increase Russia's dependence on the PRC?
Miles Yu:
What China has is economic muscle. Chinese economy is more than 10 times bigger than Russia. Chinese technological advancement is far ahead of Russia. Russia is more of a conventional hegemon country. Russia in reality has to rely on China because simply China becomes stronger and richer and more empowered. But in terms of mentality, it is different. Putin would never comfortably resign to the position of number two in the world. So, China wants to be the number one or number two. So that basically there's a clash of ambitions over there, which is why you can see some subtle signs. Now, Putin spent two days in China. He spent most of the time not in Beijing, but he spent more than half of his visit to China in the Chinese Siberian city of Harbin. Now, there are three things we have to know about Harbin. Number one is the Chinese city with the most Russian inference since the time of Bolshevik revolution.
Russian immigrants play very important role there you go to Harbin, it's more like a half a Russian city over there. It's the northernmost in the 1950s. Harbin is where it's the love boat of Soviet Union and China. That's where USSR and PRC went for honeymoon in the 1950s. Russia spent an enormous amount of its n national assets, Soviets, I should say building up Harbin as an industrial-based, engineer-based, and defense engineering [inaudible] is focus over there. Even today. There's a lot of Soviet-Russian inference over there. So, one of China's premier higher education institutes is in Harbin, right? That's one of the pillars, major pillars of China's defense industry and innovation. So that kind of [inaudible], being importance in the Soviet-Chinese relationship even gave Mao a lot of discomfort. So that's why when Stalin died, Mao thought the entire area region was dominated by pro-Soviet elements.
That's why one of the first major purges conducted by Mao in the aftermath of Stalin's death was his comrade [inaudible], who was a very close follower of Mao and [inaudible], of course was known as the Kingdom Manchuria for the CCP. So, the second thing we have to know about Harbin that the Russia leader Reverend Putin visited was Harbin, is right next to the spot where the Soviet Union and China had the border of war in March of 1969. The so-called Damansky Confrontation. We talked about this several episodes ago. Russia's domestic resentment against China is very strong even today. So much so that if you recall, we talked about this several episodes ago, that across Russia, in the first week of March, there was a national commemoration of that war against what Russia called the ‘Chinese aggression,’ right? So, if I'm reporting wind over there, I think the symbolism is pretty clear to me to send a subtle message, even though most people probably couldn't catch that kind of symbolism.
Now, third thing we have to know about Harbin is Harbin is right next to putting the biggest strategic and security worry for East Asia. That is the poor and underdeveloped Russian Siberia, or we normally call Russian Far East. That's where Harbin is, right? So, you can see the approaches of China-Russia cooperation in the last couple decades differ fundamentally right here near Harbin. That is Putin wants to use Chinese capital, Chinese money, Chinese technology to develop industry, economy, and infrastructure in Russia far east right next to Harbin. But China wants to focus on somewhere else on the western border region with Russia through the Belt and Road initiative. So, the two countries share very different perspectives on this. For example, during the Hu Jintao era, Putin and Hu signed gigantic gas deal worth $400 billion. It has gone nowhere because Putin wants China to spend a lot more money focused on building the Siberian infrastructure, including the pipelines.
China said, no, we already have something in the western near Kazakhstan, near Russia, Western reach of China, Russia, and border. So, they fundamentally differ on that. China also wants to gain access to the open seas, right, through the upper reaches of the two main river, which is as a result of communist history. Somehow China's access to the open sea through Tumen River was blocked by Russia and North Korea. So North Korea is also coming into the play. North Korea and Russia of course have become a lot closer, mostly because they have a strong alliance with China ideologically. But in terms of specific operations, both North Korea and Russia have some kind of distrust and mixed feelings about mixed feelings about China. So, for Vladimir Putin during this trip, by spending most of the time in Harbin, Putin signals to Xi Jinping the focus of his cooperation with China, which is a less of a grand deal, anti-Western fanaticism as expressed by Xi Jinping, but more of a specific focus on what worries them, the most much of the worry actually is about China.
Shane Leary:
That's fascinating. And as you point to the way these leaders have expressed the partnership, I want to dig into the joint statement which was released. To what extent are each country's objectives reflected in this statement? Did one get the better of the other? Did one get the lion's share of the objectives of the document? And is there anything in particular that stuck out to you?
Miles Yu:
I think the statements are very specific, and this actually I think is probably upon the insistence of primarily Putin because China likes to make this a very general grandiose strategic statement without any specifics. This statement actually is very specific. It's quite telling symbolically. I think in a statement there's a lot of things to celebrate both for China and for Russia. But substantively, no, there's very little meat over there. There's lengthy specifics signed in the memo, and it expresses in statements were just that statements with no follow-up mechanisms. It also does not address how China is going to respond to the double pressure from both Washington and Moscow on the war in Ukraine. But more importantly, the horse-trading regime hopes to do with Putin on the issue of joint Russia-China military action in a Taiwan invasion scenario is nowhere to be successful.
That's basically what Xi Jinping really wants to put in to commit. If Putin did make that deal with China, then Russia will be much, much bigger trouble, not just from the West. In other words, if Russia and China had some joint understanding of military cooperation in a Taiwan scenario, it could be very bad for Russia, not only from the West, but also from many of Russia's traditional friends in the region, all of whom are China's adversaries, particularly India, Vietnam, and even the Philippines. So, Putin is not full. You might think like Xi Jin, like to think so. Like so many things that Xi Jin touched upon usually turned into a major flop that would definitely boomerang back against China's interest. It almost completely dashed any illusion among free association of nations that Russia and China are separate threats to separate regions. This is a particular educational for the Europeans, I might say. So, in order for all the summons undoubtedly connects Russia's aggression in Ukraine with China's aggression in the Indo-Pacific. The only difference is that while Russia wants global relevance, China wants global dominance simply because China is far more capable than Russia to reach that global domination. And Russia, China is also far more strategically focused than Russia, and most importantly, Russia is sanctioned to bleeding. While China enjoys the full benefits of the global free market system. This has been just the folly of the west for decades.
Shane Leary:
I'm glad you brought up Ukraine because of course in the background of all of this is the war in Ukraine where the Russians have just opened up a new front. So, I want to talk about China proposed a peace plan last year, which was heavily criticized by Ukraine in the West, and there were some statements to this effect coming out of the summit, but is there a real possibility that China could play some role here in brokering a piece? I mean, they obviously have some leverage over Russia, and as you've spoken about at length in the past, they have a very unique relationship with Ukraine relative to other countries. So, I mean, even if this wouldn't be a desirable outcome for the West, for NATO or Ukraine for that matter, is a PRC mediated peace within the realm of possibility in your opinion, and I guess what would that look like?
Miles Yu:
I mean, I would not say there's zero possibility. There's probably one in a million or the possibility of spotting a real live dragon in downtown Beijing today. This reason is very simple. China absolutely cannot play a peace broker on issues like Ukraine because number one, China has no principle. China has openly sided with Russia on Ukraine. It justified rather Putin's aggression in Ukraine. It is not even implied. It's very explicit, right? This defense military says. So, China has all kinds of domestic propaganda machines saying, so China has never condemned Russia as an aggressor, by the way. Secondly, so China has no principles. China is a supreme case of opportunism when it comes to international affairs. Secondly, China has no credibility. China has signed no fewer than three strategic partnerships with Ukraine since the 1990s, one of them signed by Victor Yanukovych of Ukraine in December 2013.
Even that one even is reached a level of China providing nuclear security guarantee to Ukraine in western parliament. It's a nuclear umbrella who might be attacking Ukraine through nuclear arms. Russia. That's the only possibility, right? So, there's a very strong anti-Russia sentiment. China almost had Ukraine in its pockets completely because Ukraine was a conduit for China through which to basically steal Russian design. Russia made weapons that has enormous leftovers in Ukraine after its independence. So, over the decades, every major single Chinese western platform has had some Ukrainian assistance in it, from aircraft carriers to heavy bomber engines to envious landing craft to missile technology. It's all from Ukraine, Russian design. So, there is a lot of ways that China tried to steal loyalty and the influence over Ukraine from Russia. So, Vladimir Putin was profoundly disturbed and unhappy about this. But then when Putin annexed Crimea, now Putin had a war on Ukraine, China switched s a hundred percent completely forgot about all this chase pump pledge for protection of Ukraine.
So, none of it has gone. Now you turn the other side a hundred degree excited with aggressor, with Russia, China basically on each of Ukraine, nothing but a subservient yes man to Vladimir Putin, and it is absolutely mind-boggling to me. Even today in Kyiv in Ukraine, there are still high-level officials harboring some kind of illusion about China's positive role in a peaceful settlement of the war in Ukraine. It is absolutely nuts. So secondly, thirdly, I would say China has no record of such a being a successful broker rendering the CCP almost like a laughing-stock in global peace and conflict resolution. So, in other words, if you want to play honest broker in war on conflict, you have to have respect. You have to have the leadership quality. China has none of that. I mean, not only Ukraine, I mean in the middle is the same thing. China has never condemned Hamas for the atrocities committed. China now is turned around and they have a very strong pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas stance. So basically, that's what I'm saying. China is no position to play a broker for global peace. Not only that, China is the perpetrator of conflict in the world, particularly in the Pacific. Look at how many countries have problems with China. I mean on borders. Virtually everyone has some problem with China. China means no words about that.
Shane Leary:
Last question on this before we move on. How do you think the US and the West more broadly should be responding to this developed relationship between Russian and China?
Miles Yu:
In practical terms, best teachers to teach the world to deal with hooliganism aggression, [inaudible] are actually those rogue states themselves. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have done enormous public service to the world that in response to this kind of anti-west, anti-universal values alliance like China and Russia are developing. The best way to do it is do it collectively. You cannot really deal with China or Russia just by the United States alone or by someone's allies. It is a threat to global peace. Everybody has to respond collectively. That's why the stakes are very high, because Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin have exactly the same large aggression in Taiwan and in Ukraine. That is a complete denial of other countries, sovereignty, independence, and nationhood. Using civilizational ties, cultural heritage, and ethnic linguistic traditions as the justification to invade a sovereign independent country in the 21st century. That's why the source of global instability, the source of war in today's world is basically a sort of emerging alliance between Moscow and Beijing. If you look, go back to history, look at how many things were triggered by the access of this aggression. I mean, since the 1950s, the Korean War, Vietnam War, and Afghanistan war, I mean, it is all about these two countries, either the corporate or either they diver competing for supremacy in a socialist-communist camp. So that's why this thread must be dealt collectively, reasonably with the correct understanding of the source of this trouble, not just the trouble itself.
Shane Leary:
Real quick before we wrap up here, you have just attended the inauguration of President William LA in Taiwan. Do you have any initial thoughts on that? We'll speak more about this next week, but any initial thoughts?
Miles Yu:
This is another sort of countervailing theme that's going on in the world. While there are clouds of war, clouds of instability posed by Russia and China, Iran, and North Korea, there are also much to celebrate about the triumph of universal values, triumph of democracy. No place in East Asia is better illustrated than Taiwan when people celebrate the peaceful transition, the completely free and fair election in the small island of Taiwan. So, Taiwan is a small country, but the inspirational value, the inspirational impact upon the much larger area, particularly upon the Chinese speaking people inside China is enormous. That's why I went there as a private citizen of the United States, and obviously I went there with the former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo and who has a very clear message. He delivered a wonderful speech over there, I think has resonated with a lot of people in Taiwan and beyond. But I'll share more of my thoughts with the audience and listeners next week.
Shane Leary:
Wonderful. Well, Miles, I think that's all the time we have. Thanks so much and I look forward to hearing those thoughts next week.
Miles Yu:
Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of China Insider. I'd like to thank my colleague Shannon Lee, for taking part in this undertaking every week. I'd also like to thank our executive producer, Philip Hegseth, who works tirelessly and professionally behind the scenes for every episode. To make sure we deliver the best quality podcast to you, the listeners, if you enjoy the show, please spread the words for Chinese listeners. Please check our monthly review and analysis episode in Chinese. We'll see you next time.