The Russian invasion of Ukraine has injected a massive dose of uncertainty into the already fraught great power triangle of U.S.-Russia-China relations. 

Only recently touting a “no-limits” friendship with Russia, China now finds itself trapped between the imperative of maintaining this strategic partnership and preserving its image and good relations with much of the rest of the world. Where Beijing will land on this thinning red line is unclear, but the United States could do more to move it in the right direction.

Relations between the great powers have reached an inflection point, and could grow much worse in the years ahead. This will mean that efforts to push back against the framing of international politics and security as largely a function of “great power competition” will become much harder. Even in the face of the growing climate crisis, much of the focus of the world will likely remain on tensions between the U.S., Russia, and China for the foreseeable future

Russia’s invasion, and the belief that China is largely supportive of Russia, bolsters the notion of a global authoritarian bloc that stands against democratic states. That theme has been a staple of the U.S. government since at least the early years of the Trump administration. 

Until now, it has been a strained argument at best, especially in the face of a global pandemic, the disastrous consequences of ever-worsening climate change, and the deepening interdependence associated with economic and technological globalization trends. These developments had all justified, correctly, the need to place a primary stress in global politics on reducing great power competition and increasing incentives to cooperate in handling common threats.

But Beijing’s failure to full-throatedly condemn Putin’s illegal and unjustified attack on Ukraine and its repeated emphasis on U.S. culpability for the war (due to Washington’s efforts to bring Ukraine and virtually all other nations on Russia’s western borders into NATO) are pushing these global concerns to the side. The assumption for many seems to be that China must now be treated like Russia, as a kind of rogue nation bent on aggression. This has produced simplistic and wrong-headed analogies between Putin’s attack on Ukraine and Xi Jinping’s calculus regarding the use of force toward Taiwan.

In fact, there are many reasons to think that China, while seeking to preserve its friendly relationship with Russia, is extremely unhappy with Putin’s actions and is keen to distinguish its position on the conflict from that of Moscow. 

In reality, China faces four cross-cutting interests on the Ukraine issue. It wants to uphold its long-standing position in support of national sovereignty and non-intervention in the domestic affairs of other states, which clearly militates against Putin’s actions. China recognizes Ukraine as a sovereign, independent state and has had very good relations with Kyiv.  

Second, it wants to sustain its strategic relationship with Russia because it believes that that relationship has thus far given it some leverage in countering what it regards as the U.S. commitment to contain and weaken China. At the same time, Beijing also wants to avoid fully alienating both European and Asian countries (many of which are democracies) by seeming to endorse Putin’s abhorrent actions. 

It particularly wants to avoid having the Ukraine issue increase Asian support for what it sees as the U.S. containment effort toward China in the western Pacific. Indeed, some in China fear that a strengthened NATO under U.S. leadership will give impetus to NATO-like structures in Asia.

In trying to balance among these cross-cutting interests, Beijing is clearly leaning toward Russia for strategic reasons but trying to adopt what it considers is an even-handed approach with regard to the resolution of the war. While it does not explicitly condemn Putin’s invasion, it abhors the conflict and denies that it has received a request to provide the Russian leader with military assistance. 

China has also stressed U.S. responsibility for creating the conditions leading to Putin’s fateful decision, but criticizes the resort to violence and does not endorse Putin’s demands. It criticizes NATO and calls for a renewed effort to develop a Europe-wide security structure that includes Russia. It opposes sanctions in principle and their use in this case as ineffective and illegal but nonetheless allows Chinese companies to comply with many of them.    

Overall, Beijing has tried to appear as the peace-loving, restraint-oriented great power that is urging diplomatic talks in an even-handed way, perhaps suggesting that Ukraine and Russia in some sense have equal responsibility for the war. This might generate support among some developing countries, but it is certainly not a winning formula in Europe, North America, and among many democratic states in Asia. 

Despite its effort to promote such a self-image, Beijing clearly sees the danger of being lumped in with Putin as an evil, authoritarian regime and wants to maintain at least workable and if possible constructive relations with democracies. 

On the negative side, some believe that Beijing might see some advantage in the ongoing Russia-West crisis, because it distracts U.S. attention from China. There is little evidence that Beijing holds this view, however, and the Chinese must realize that such a view is dangerous if carried too far. If Putin is stalemated on the battlefield and resorts to weapons of mass destruction or attacks on NATO states to reach his goal, the pressure on China to abandon him or suffer major Western (and likely Asian) sanctions and isolation will increase exponentially.

Beijing might think that it can weather such pressures, in part because they would not be uniformly applied by all countries given the huge value of China’s economic relations with many nations. But running that risk would be decidedly dangerous. Moreover, the Chinese leadership certainly does not want to have a major crisis with the West and parts of Asia explode on the eve of its 20th Party Congress in the fall.   

On balance, Beijing definitely sees the advantages of a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine war sooner rather than later and without further escalation. Yet while it has indicated that it is open to playing a positive diplomatic role, the U.S. would likely oppose this, unless China stops backing Russia entirely and adopts a more genuinely even-handed stance. But this is unlikely under current conditions.

There is in fact an opportunity in the current situation, however, given China’s mixed interests, to reduce its lean toward Russia by opening the door to more positive Sino-U.S. relations. Thus far, Washington has employed almost entirely negative incentives toward Beijing. At some point, the U.S. will probably need to send credible messages to Beijing that it will not be back to business-as-usual in countering China on virtually all fronts if the Chinese move further away from Putin. And of course, Beijing must be prepared to respond with its own credible efforts to improve relations.

So far, neither side has seen much value in serious efforts to reach mutually beneficial understandings. It is time to reconsider that stance, before developments in Ukraine prevent it.