China, Russia and risk

It is not every day that a prominent Chinese academic, living and working in China, publicly challenges the party line on a matter of supreme importance. Last Friday, Professor Hu Wei — vice-chairman of the Public Policy Research Centre of the Chinese State Council and chairman of a Shanghai think tank — did exactly that when he published an essay calling on Beijing to condemn Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and dump its alliance with Russia. The essay appeared on the US-China Perception Monitor website, published by the US-based Carter Center. Within hours it had accumulated over a million views, before being censored within China by the authorities there.

What gives this incident its significance is the implication that Hu Wei not only clearly spells out the danger for China of supporting Russia’s genocidal war in Ukraine, but almost certainly speaks for others inside the Chinese elite. We do not know whether Professor Hu has been punished for his dissenting opinions and we may not hear about his fate for some time. If, however, he is voicing the disquiet of other senior figures in the Chinese Communist Party, then one of two consequences is likely. Either Xi Jinping will crack down on these critics, perhaps unleashing a new purge of officials and intellectuals, to enforce his pro-Putin policy. Or Xi and the Chinese party leadership will change their policy — though almost certainly without acknowledging that this is what was proposed by Hu Wei.

The essay consists of a remarkably objective analysis of the war and its likely outcome. Whether or not Ukraine is defeated, the author argues, “this military action constitutes an irreversible mistake”. He suggests that any escalation that led to a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO “would be even worse for Putin”. He considers the possibility that Putin could be “ousted from power due to civil strife, coup d’état or another reason”. In any conflict with the West, Russia would “succumb”, perhaps be “dismembered” and its “status as a great power would come to an end”.

Hu Wei then analyses the global impact of the war, suggesting that the West’s power will be enhanced and China will be more isolated. Without Putin, the US would be better able to “lock China in strategic containment”. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan will be even more closely aligned with the West: “China will not only be militarily encircled by the US, NATO, the QUAD and AUKUS, but also be challenged by Western values and systems.”

Hence Beijing has, in Hu’s view, no choice but the lesser of two evils: “unloading the burden of Russia as soon as possible”. Though he does not mention Palmerston, he quotes the British statesman’s dictum that there are no perpetual allies or enemies: only interests are eternal. Chinese interests dictate that it should “give up being neutral and choose the mainstream position in the world”. Beijing has always stood for “national sovereignty and territorial integrity” and Ukraine is no exception — especially given its claim that Taiwan belongs to mainland China. Moreover, only China is in a position to influence Putin, to deter him from further escalation and perhaps end the war. Such an intervention would win China praise as a peacemaker, prevent its own isolation and improve its relations with West.

What is striking about Hu Wei’s lucid analysis is its implied recognition that China is much weaker than it claims and must therefore avoid isolation at all costs. It would be disastrous, in his view, for Beijing to find itself on the wrong side of a new Iron Curtain, allowing itself to be defined by the West as an authoritarian dictatorship in what would become a “life-and-death battle between those for and against Western democracy”. Hu Wei is evidently in no doubt that China would lose such a battle and must therefore forestall such a confrontation. His critique has in effect demolished the basis of recent Chinese foreign policy — and its cogency makes it all the more painful for the authors of that policy, including Xi himself. No wonder their first reaction was to try to stop their compatriots from getting this message. We can only hope that they do not shoot the messenger, too.

One further point lends weight to the case made by Hu Wei. In an article for the Times, the security expert Elisabeth Braw (formerly based in London, now a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC) shows why Western business now sees China as high-risk. In a survey of bosses by the insurance broker WTW, this is now the “near-unanimous” view. Some 95 per cent of businesses now see investments in “Asia-Pacific” (a region dominated by China) as hazardous, up from 62 per cent two years ago, and much riskier than either the Middle East (44 per cent) or Europe, including Russia (68 per cent). The invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions on Russia have no doubt increased Europe’s risks, but will also reinforce anxieties about China, which could also find itself subject to sanctions for backing Putin even if it does not invade Taiwan.

Beijing is reaping the consequences of its “wolf warrior diplomacy” and mini-trade wars against countries that defy its ban on relations with Taiwan or criticise its treatment of Uighurs or Hong Kongers. Business has noticed what befell Australia, whose wine industry has lost 96 per cent of exports to its Chinese markets due to penal tariffs after Canberra cast doubt on the official account of the origins of Covid in Wuhan. Lithuania, too, has been shut out of China after it irritated Beijing by upgrading relations with Taipei. Insurers are the people who pick up the pieces when investors lose their shirts, so they are hard-headed about risk. And the consensus now is that Beijing is, in Ms Braw’s words, “not afraid to harm Western companies as proxies for their governments”.

All this adds up to a worrying picture for China. Western business is already tiptoeing away and that could become a rush for the exit if Xi links his fortunes to those of Putin. The damage to both men’s prestige if the war ends badly will be irreparable. It is not inconceivable that soon more than one autocrat could find himself in the dustbin of history. That at least would be some consolation for the brave defenders of Mariupol, Kharkiv and Kyiv.

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