“The war in Ukraine will weigh much more heavily on Chinese strategy than the regime in Beijing would have liked”

Tribune. In 2005, Robert Zoellick, then US Assistant Secretary of State, wondered: “Could China become a “responsible actor”? » Listening to the Chinese leaders since the beginning of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, it is doubtful that this proposal will happen today as some optimists call for it.

Day after day, the spokespersons of the regime peddle untruths, then relayed by Chinese social networks. Thus, on March 8, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs let it be understood that the United States could control “hazardous biological laboratories” in Ukraine. How long can Beijing continue to accuse the United States and NATO of having set fire to the powder while claiming to respect the territorial sovereignty of countries – including Ukraine? For a great power aspiring to the first place on the podium, we do better in terms of responsibility.

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The relationship between Beijing and Moscow is “solid as a rock”, says Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, especially since the signing of the “privileged partnership” on February 4 between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. A friendship “stronger than an alliance”, according to the Chinese number one. Since pro-Russian propaganda has been established for a long time, it is probably too late to denounce the horror of the aggression. Chinese aficionados of Vladimir Putin would find it hard to understand such a reversal.

hereditary enemy

Allied in their aversion to the now hereditary enemy – the United States, accused of being “unipolar” in the name of “so-called universality” – the two autocrats both practice opportunism for the better. defend their systems. Unlike Woodrow Wilson, the American president who in 1917 declared that he wanted to “to make the world safer for democracy”Xi and Putin want to consolidate their authoritarian power over time.

Notable differences remain. By attacking Ukraine, Putin is running after the reconquest of an untraceable Tsarist Russia. For years now, Russia has appeared more like a “disruptive” power when Xi’s China aims for world supremacy. These are revisionist powers of different types: Russia destroys, seeks to infiltrate, to influence public opinion, supports regimes at odds with the international community (from Syrian Bashar Al-Assad to Belarusian Alexander Lukashenko) opposed to the values ​​upheld by the democracies.

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