Last Update: April 05, 2022
Eurasianet, a news center specialized on the Caucasus region and Central Asia, came to the following conclusion:
Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China has said all the right things in support of Russia, its professed strategic partner. Chinese officials have faithfully repeated Russian propaganda, refusing to describe the unprovoked attack on Ukraine as a “war” or “invasion,” while echoing the Kremlin claim that NATO’s expansionist desires are the root cause of the conflict.
But Beijing’s actions are telling a different story, underscored by the March 9 Foreign Ministry announcement that the Chinese Red Cross is supplying almost $800,000 in humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. The amount is small, but the gesture is significant in the current context: Chinese leaders are hedging their geopolitical bets.
It was just over a month ago that Russian leader Vladimir Putin met with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, at the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics. The two issued a joint statement describing bilateral relations as “superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era,” and cooperation as having “no limits.”
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, however, China’s behavior toward Russia has been circumspect and restrained, its officials proclaiming solidarity with Russia without following up in substance. Before Russian troops attacked, Chinese officials spoke against Western sanctions. But once the United States and European Union started imposing sanctions and disconnecting Russian banks from the SWIFT financial network, leading Chinese financial institutions began quietly adhering to the restrictions, according to Bloomberg news service.
A personal view published in the Chinese Financial Times Network put it that way:
There is now a popular view at home and abroad that China will be an important beneficiary of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The reason is that the Russia-Ukraine conflict highlights the contradiction between Russia and the West, especially the United States, and leads the United States' strategic focus from Asia to Europe, which will reduce the international pressure on China. In other words, China will be the winner of this geopolitical conflict. To demonstrate this point, the claim often cites the US war in Afghanistan as an example. After President George W. Bush took office in 2001, he planned to exert more pressure on China, but the "9·11" terrorist attack in 2001 completely changed this situation. In the following 20 years, the United States has devoted itself to combating international terrorism, thus easing the pressure on China. China has therefore won 20 years of golden development opportunities and made great strides in economic construction. Now, at a time when the United States regained focus on deploying a geopolitical strategy of "back to Asia" and treating China as a strategic competitor, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict broke out again, which prompted the United States to reconsider its global strategy and allocate more power to Europe.
It is therefore that China will not be inclined to join ranks with a global majority of nations to oppose Putin's war on Ukraine. China's priority would rather be a silent reconstruction of global alliances and delivery chains to compensate for the damage inflicted by Putin's war on China's 'One Road One Belt' strategy in Central Asia.
Furthermore, showing public disagreement with Putin's macciavellian strategy for eastern Europe could reshift the focus of international criticism to China's own domestic and global strategies.
On April 2, the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong published an article titled "Why the War in Ukraine Won't Derail China's "One Belt, One Road" Initiative's ambitious goals". The author is Hong Kong - APEC Trade David Dodwell, executive director of the Policy Research Group.
欧亚铁路是个惊人的成功。去年，大约有150万个集装箱往来于中国与23个欧洲国家的130个城市之间，在疫情扰乱了海运和空运之际，占中欧贸易的5%至8%。
俄乌冲突无疑扰乱了运输，但长期来看，认为这将产生重大影响是不准确的。
对北京而言，欧亚铁路只是中国争取世界贸易市场准入多样化、减少对马六甲海峡和苏伊士运河的依赖、确保能够长期获得国内长期供应不足的大宗商品渠道的众多项目之一。根据路孚特公司“一带一路”倡议数据库统计，它已包括全球2631个项目，总价值达3.7万亿美元。
从这个角度看，“一带一路”为一个不稳定的世界提供了极其重要的防御。欧亚铁路短期损失部分集装运输业务，不会让中国人夜不能寐。
The Eurasian Railway was an astonishing success. About 1.5 million containers travelled between China and 130 cities in 23 European countries last year, accounting for 5-8% of trade between China and Europe at a time when the pandemic has disrupted sea and air freight.
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has undoubtedly disrupted transportation, but it would be inaccurate to think that this will have a significant impact in the long run.
For Beijing, the Eurasian railway is just one of many projects China is seeking to diversify market access to world trade, reduce its reliance on the Straits of Malacca and the Suez Canal, and ensure long-term access to commodities that are chronically undersupplied at home. According to Refinitiv's Belt and Road Initiative database, it already includes 2,631 projects around the world with a total value of US$3.7 trillion.
From this perspective, the Belt and Road Initiative provides an extremely important defense against an unstable world. The Eurasian Railway will lose some container transportation business in the short term, which will not keep the Chinese up at night.
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