Abstract

This article explores China’s response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, highlighting the challenges of balancing its strategic partnership with Russia, economic ties to the West, and desire to appear as a peaceful and neutral actor. While China wishes to prevent a Russian defeat in Ukraine, doing so risks severe Western economic backlash. Meanwhile, new escalations in the war create further discomfort, possibly leading China to modify its currently ambiguous public stance in the future.

Introduction

Following Washington’s decision to allow Ukraine to strike Russian territory with US long-range missiles in November, China accused the US of “pouring fuel on fire and escalating the war” (Chan, 2024). In light of the broader US–China strategic rivalry, it is perhaps no surprise that China would try to condemn the actions of its adversary. However, such statements have not yet accompanied overt military support from China to Russia in its war of aggression in Ukraine, even as the United States remains the largest supporter of Ukraine. This article will illustrate how China has had to navigate a delicate balancing act concerning Russia’s war in Ukraine. I will argue that as the war has stretched on, China has been put into increasingly uncomfortable positions as it is forced to weigh its strategic partnership with Russia against its economic ties to the West and its desire to maintain a carefully crafted image as a peaceful and neutral global power.

A “No-limits” Partnership

China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin have developed strong bilateral political, economic, and military relations ever since the beginning of Xi’s rule. Those relations gained newfound significance after 2018 when China first participated in Russia’s large-scale military exercises. As Beijing’s relations with Washington soured due to President Donald Trump’s trade war against China, Xi paid a visit to Moscow in 2019 and referred to Putin as his “best friend” (Roth et al., 2024). In early 2022, shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Xi and Putin declared a “no-limits partnership” between the two countries during the Russian leader’s visit to Beijing. Immediately following Russia’s invasion, China expressed its support for “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries” but argued that given NATO’s eastward expansion over the years, “Russia's legitimate security demands should be taken seriously and properly addressed” (Martina et al., 2022). Ever since, China has publicly followed a path of strategic ambiguity concerning Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine—it has neither condemned Moscow’s actions (abstaining on or voting against the relevant UN resolutions) nor has it offered Putin overt military support (Skrypchenko, 2024).  

The “Only Winner” of the War?

Despite maintaining an image of neutrality, China has much to gain from lending its tacit support to Russia’s war in Ukraine. First, the two countries help each other survive much of the economic fallout from Western sanctions. Direct bilateral trade between China and Russia reached 240 billion US dollars in 2023, having more than doubled since 2018. Beijing is able to enjoy Russian fuel and raw materials at cheap prices, enabled by Moscow’s desperate need to fund its war machine and the collapse of Russian imports to Europe.  China, on the other hand, can expand into the Russian market in areas such as 5G technology and microelectronics, fields in which it is banned from the US and the EU due to security concerns. Exporting “dual use” (military and civilian) goods such as certain microelectronics to Russia also helps China support Moscow’s war efforts without providing lethal aid (Christoffersen, 2024). US officials claim that 90% of the microelectronics and 70% of machine tools that Russia imported in 2023 came from China (Madhani, 2024). Such expansion, of course, is supported by the withdrawal of most Western business activity from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. Faced with Western sanctions and both having plenty to offer the other, Russia and China have thus developed an extremely convenient and mutually beneficial economic partnership.

But for China, perhaps more important than any economic benefit is Russia’s obvious potential as a strong ally in challenging the US-led liberal-democratic world order. Russia’s military power and especially its nuclear arsenal allow Moscow to make threats that sow genuine fears and division in the West, damaging Western unity and thus hindering the decision-making power of China’s greatest strategic rivals. In Europe, the costs of supporting Ukraine have already given way to exhaustion and frustration for many voters, strengthening populist politicians like Slovakia’s Robert Fico who advocates rapprochement with Russia and supports closer ties to China, as seen by his opposition to EU tariffs on Chinese EVs (Lee et al., 2024). In the US, concerns have been raised about decreasing weapons stockpiles and a possibly weakened US ability to respond to potential Chinese actions in the Indo-Pacific as a result of the military aid sent to Ukraine and Israel (Copp, 2024). Thus, whichever way Russia’s war ends, such disruptions in international politics arguably benefit China’s ambitions.

China has clear interests in Russia's victory in the war. Russia’s victory would bolster President Putin’s grip over his country and (at least in the short term) provide China with a scarred, but nevertheless emboldened ally in its strategic rivalry with the West. After Crimea, Donbas, and Afghanistan, Russia’s victory in Ukraine would be yet another serious failure for Western foreign policy and global standing, proving to the world that despite all odds (i.e. Western backlash), authoritarianism and heavy-handed military intervention can still prevail in the modern world. China might then also feel more comfortable taking stronger action against Taiwan or its adversaries in the South China Sea (Lopez, 2024). Meanwhile, Russia’s defeat could allow for Ukraine’s swift entry into NATO and the EU, the West at Russia’s doorstep, and a strategic nightmare for China (Khoo, 2024). But even if Russia loses in Ukraine, some commentators argue that China can still benefit from a significantly weakened Russia at its borders. Considering the above observations, some analysts thus argue that China is the “only winner” of the Russo–Ukrainian war (Saiya & Wadidi, 2023). 

China’s Delicate Balancing Act

Nevertheless, China has not had an easy time navigating its position on Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, and there are clear reasons why China has avoided fully supporting Russia in its war efforts. Despite closer ties to Moscow and any benefits it may gain from the war, Beijing still has to face the fact that Russia’s invasion is in contradiction to what China claims are its principles in international relations, such as peaceful coexistence, political settlement of disputes, foreign non-interference and respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries (Guan, 2024). China’s reputation as a “peacefully rising” nation would be threatened if it renders overt support to the largest war in Europe since 1945.

Moreover, for nearly three years now, Beijing has had to walk a tightrope between maintaining good relations with the West and pursuing its interests with Russia. A third of China’s exports, worth around a trillion US dollars, went to the US and EU, Ukraine’s staunchest allies, in 2023. Despite significant growth, exports to Russia still only made up around 3% of China’s total exports that year (Richter, 2024). The West has become increasingly confident in using its leverage over China concerning Russia’s war, with NATO referring to China as a “decisive enabler” of the war and US President Joe Biden arguing that China is “not going to benefit economically” by providing aid to Russia (Wong, 2024). Indeed, the war and its economic consequences such as sanctions, supply chain shocks, and market instabilities have already disrupted Beijing’s global trade interests (Skrypchenko, 2024). Naturally, Beijing is aware of such risks. Tightening sanctions have, for example, prompted Chinese banks to refuse many Russian payments in fear of Western repercussions (Tan, 2024). However, the West is also economically dependent on China. Even if Beijing were to openly support Russia’s war effort, the extent to which the West would agree to give up its trade with China is uncertain. But with the country’s current economic struggles, its dependency on Western markets, and the CCP’s reliance on performance-based legitimacy, China may not be willing to risk its economic stability and is thus forced to reconcile its long-term strategic goals with shorter-term economic goals, a task that is becoming increasingly tricky.

What Lies Ahead

China is no different from Russia, Ukraine, or the West in that it has had to continuously recalculate its approach to the war due to changing circumstances. Like Vladimir Putin and many analysts in the West (Dickinson, 2022; Preble et al., 2023), Beijing probably expected a quick and painless Russian victory in early 2022, which never came (Wu, 2023). After a year of brutal war, Beijing pitched a 12-point peace plan, the adoption of which was ultimately rejected by Russia, Ukraine, and the West. On the surface, that may have seemed like a diplomatic failure for China, but it also helped Beijing make a show of distancing itself from Russia’s position on the invasion, which, it hoped, it could use to reduce the negative consequences of Russia’s war in Ukraine on its own foreign relations (Wu, 2023). As the situation on the battlefield entered a stalemate in 2023, China likely hoped that it could continue mutually beneficial trade with Russia without too much discomfort until the eventual defeat of Ukraine.

But such hopes continue to be put into question. Despite very real limitations, the West has shown great resolve in supporting Ukraine. The war has galvanized NATO and revitalized European defense policy in a way not seen in decades. In addition to the West’s continued scrutiny of China’s close ties to Russia, Beijing now has to navigate around developments in Russia’s war that few could have predicted in February 2022 (Dickinson, 2022; Preble et al., 2023). North Korea, China’s only treaty ally, has sent thousands of troops to fight in Russia’s war. As China is by far also the country’s largest trade partner, North Korea’s entry into the war again threatens China’s narrative of its “peaceful rise.” Moreover, with the military support gained from Russia in exchange for sending its troops there, North Korea may become emboldened to take aggressive action against South Korea or Japan, disturbing the status quo in East Asia and threatening China’s relationships with two of its key trade partners in the region (Pierson, 2024). While China insists it has no knowledge of the North Korean troop dispatch, analysts disagree over whether China knew about Pyongyang’s plans in advance and how much Beijing is actually annoyed by the troops (Wintour, 2024). The West responded to Pyongyang’s decision by finally allowing Ukraine to strike targets in Russia with their long-range missiles, which Moscow countered with renewed nuclear posturing and the use of a novel missile (Adams & Bennett, 2024). Because of its vested interests, China cannot fully condemn or support either side of the conflict, yet it is forced to take positions on issues it would likely prefer to avoid. As the stakes are increasing in Ukraine, China is being put in increasingly uncomfortable positions and may eventually have to harden or abandon its current ambiguous stance.

After proposing its peace plan in February 2023, China has been somewhat passive regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine. It has mostly only responded to major developments, such as the escalations following the North Korean troop dispatch, by calling for restraint and a peaceful resolution to the conflict and accusing the West of escalation by militarily supporting Ukraine (Xin, 2024). Before any major changes to its Ukraine policy, China is likely waiting for further changes on the battlefield and Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Since Trump has consistently focused on China in his rhetoric and policies, pledging tariffs on China’s exports from his first day in office (Hoskins, 2024), China’s stance towards the war in Ukraine might soon undergo a larger change in response.

Conclusion

Although China sees some very real benefits from Russia’s war in Ukraine, it has also forced Beijing into incredibly uncomfortable positions and choices that it might rather avoid. China cannot easily choose between trade and strategic interests, whether that concerns Russia and the West, or North Korea and South Korea. It also has to keep its image as clean as possible while simultaneously maintaining a narrative that is friendly to Russia. But China’s dilemmas concerning Russia’s war in Ukraine are not much different from the dilemmas resulting from Beijing’s chosen path to world power. Economically, China has benefitted enormously from the Western-led liberal world order, and a rollback on these gains now seems suicidal. On the other hand, China wants to challenge the West and transform the world more to its liking, which requires strong and bold allies that happen to have deep grievances towards the West. China’s balancing act regarding Ukraine thus underscores the country’s broader struggle to reconcile its economic reliance on the existing global order with its ideological and geopolitical aspirations to reshape it.