"Why China Won’t Break With Russia Over Ukraine" (2)
China does not stand to gain from a weakening of Russia.
I would like tentatively to share the insights of Mr. Alexander Lukin, Head of the Department of International Relations at HSE University and Director of the Center for East Asian and Shanghai Cooperation Organization Studies at MGIMO University, Moscow, Russia.:
His theme is:
Why China Won’t Break With Russia Over Ukraine.
The Chinese authorities are confronting serious problems over Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.
On the one hand, the closeness of relations between Beijing and Moscow is at its highest level in years.
As far as Beijing is concerned, Russia’s importance stems from its role as a supplier of raw materials and its value as a geopolitical ally in the confrontational relationship with the United States thrust upon China during Donald Trump’s presidency.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed the situation in the famous formula in January 2021, when he stated that Sino-Russian strategic cooperation had no limit, no forbidden zones, and no ceiling.
A year later, China and Russia reinforced this political line in a joint statement adopted during a visit by President Vladimir Putin to China, in which, for the first time, Beijing associated itself clearly with Russia’s demands to halt the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) expansion, as well as calling on the organization, jointly with Moscow, “to abandon its ideologized cold war approaches, to respect the sovereignty, security and interests of other countries, the diversity of their civilizational, cultural and historical backgrounds, and to exercise a fair and objective attitude towards the peaceful development of other States.”
