Putin’s and Xi Jinping’s unholy alliance

1. Xi Jinping and Putin – An Unequal Couple

China’s policy towards Russia and Putin’s large-scale attack on Ukraine is commonly described as a clever maneu­vering between supporting the “strategic partner” in Moscow and avoiding damage to relations with the “West”, in short “pro-Russian neutrality”.[1] A failure of Putin, including a collapse of the regime in Moscow, would be a geopo­litical disaster from the Chinese point of view. It would tear open China’s terri­torial bulwark in the landmass of North Asia and open a gateway for its strategic rival, the United States. That is why China provides its neighbor with extensive political and economic support. Without China as a “decisive enabler”, Putin would not be able to wage his war of aggression in its current form.[2] However, Chinese Communist Party’s as well as military and state leader Xi Jinping has also shown “red lines” to his junior partner Putin, whom he sees as difficult to predict, with a view to prevent a global escalation of the conflict.[3]

At the same time, Beijing remains anxious to continue to dynam­i­cally expand its vital export markets in Europe and North America, to avoid third-country sanctions, and to be perceived worldwide, especially by the Global South, as a balanced partner keen to contribute to a peaceful conflict resolution. At its core, it is about minimizing the political and economic costs associated with supporting Russia. Within the framework of the United Nations, the People’s Republic of China has consis­tently abstained from resolu­tions condemning Russia, most recently from the two different draft resolu­tions submitted by Ukraine and the United States to the General Assembly on the third anniversary of the start of Russia’s full scale attack on February 24, 2025.[4] In the Security Council, however, Beijing, together with the US and Russia, excep­tionally agrees on the same day to the minimalist text intro­duced by Washington, which is pro-Russian because it does not name the aggressor.[5] In its political state­ments, China avoids any condem­nation of Russia, but at the same time repeatedly refers abstractly to the principle of the invio­la­bility of sover­eignty and terri­torial integrity of states.

The current result of the Chinese course is impressive: The appearance of Chinese equidis­tance catches on with many countries of the Global South. Despite Trump, support for Ukraine continues to tie up US military resources and thus limits Washing­ton’s room for maneuver with regard to the potential major conflict over Taiwan in the future. The war between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East has deepened the gap between “the West” and the Global South, thus indirectly benefiting China. The regime in Moscow is firmly in the saddle but is becoming increas­ingly dependent on Beijing. At the same time, China remains the European Union’s second-largest trading partner after the United State with a share of 15 percent.[6] In addition, the current chaos in Washington, the U‑turn in U.S.-Ukraine policy under Trump and the disin­te­gration of the political West play into China’s hands.

It’s like an upside-down world: At his press conference on March 7, 2025 on the occasion of this year’s Plenary Session of the National People’s Congress, the chairman of the Central Committee Commission for Foreign Policy and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi praised his country as an irreplaceable pillar of the UN Charter and inter­na­tional order: “We will be a just and righteous force for world peace and stability”, adding that Beijing will counter global uncer­tainty through providing “certainty to this uncertain world”[7].

Never­theless, Beijing cannot sit back and wait but must take precau­tions not to be overwhelmed by the dynamics of current events. The unpre­dictable leader of China’s “strategic partner” Russia has been joined by an at least equally unpre­dictable President at the head of Beijing’s strategic rival, the USA.  This erratic duo alone runs deeply counter to the deeply rooted desire of the leadership of the “Middle Kingdom” for strategic planning. Trump’s ceasefire initiative and intensive talks between Washington and Moscow cannot leave China untouched. A cessation of military support for Ukraine and a possible withdrawal from Europe by the US would weaken NATO, deepen the rift between America and Europe and thus promote Xi’s agenda of even stronger economic, but above all political, European ties to China. However, the resources thus freed up could promote a bundling of Washing­ton’s political-military focus on Northeast Asia and Taiwan, a military “pivot to Asia”, and thus cloud the prospects of realizing the “Chinese dream,” which includes a, if possible, peaceful “reuni­fi­cation” of Taiwan with the Chinese motherland during Xi’s lifetime.[8]

Thus, despite the geographical distance, the fate of Ukraine hits deep into the geopo­litical heart of China: No matter how Trump ultimately positions himself in a “peace deal”, it is about the geopo­litical measurement of spheres of influence and the challenge posed by China’s only strategic adversary on an equal footing, the USA. Trump’s unpre­dictability makes it even more difficult to deal with the tension between the great powers in a ratio­nally calcu­lated way.

China publicly acknowl­edged in a joint statement with Russia in May 2024 that its strategic partnership with Moscow, despite repeated claims that it is not directed against a third country,[9] is aimed at the USA. In the verbose decla­ration of principles, which runs to around 8,000 words in its English trans­lation and marked the 75th anniversary of the estab­lishment of diplo­matic relations on May 16, 2024, both countries declared their intention to counter the “the US’ non-constructive and hostile policy of so-called “dual containment” against China and Russia”.[10] This makes it unmis­takably clear: The goal of the “China-Russia Compre­hensive Strategic Partnership of Coordi­nation for the New Era” is aimed at their common systemic rival, the USA.

2. The Causes of the “Ukraine Crisis” and the “Seven Evils”

Moscow and Beijing also agree on their analysis of the causes of what Beijing euphemisti­cally calls the “Ukraine Crisis”[11]: In Beijing’s internal analysis, the real warmongers are the US and its Western allies, their weapon being the expansion of NATO and the instru­men­tal­ization of Ukraine as a spearhead, thereby threat­ening Russia’s and indirectly China’s security.[12] In the case of Ukraine, Xi Jinping goes even further, claiming the necessity to defend against alleged Western inter­ference in the country’s internal affairs by means of a “color revolution.” Xi thus portrays Putin’s aggression against the sovereign neigh­boring state of Ukraine as a defensive struggle against an invasive West that seeks to impose its ideas of democracy and the rule of law on the country and then use it as a vehicle for exporting these ideas to other countries.[13]

With this, Xi is building on a key directive from the first months of his term in office, the “Commu­niqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere. A Notice from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’s General Office”, or Document No. 9/​2013 for short. It is a program­matic, funda­mental text that Xi had issued inter­nally within the government for instruction and training purposes a few months after his initial election as General Secretary[14] of the CPC Central Committee on April 22, 2013. It was published after being leaked in August 2013.[15] The document, in whose drafting Xi himself and his chief ideol­ogist Wang Huning[16] are said to have played a leading role, is a decla­ration of war on the political West and its values. At its core, it denounces “seven evils” whose spread in China must be prevented. The CPC sees itself under attack by “Western anti-Chinese forces” that seek to destroy the party through “Western­ization.” The party’s existential threats are, in particular,

• “Promoting Western Consti­tu­tional Democracy, considered to under­mining the current leadership and the socialism with Chinese characteristics”;
• “Promoting ‘universal values’ in an attempt to weaken the theoretical founda­tions of the Party’s leadership. The goal of espousing ‘universal values’ is to claim that the West’s value system defies time and space, transcends nation and class, and applies to all humanity.”
• „Promoting Neolib­er­alism, attempting to change China’s Basic Economic System.“
• „Promoting the West’s idea of journalism, challenging China’s principle that the media and publishing system should be subject to Party discipline.”

Conclusion:

“ …and so long as we persist in CCP leadership and socialism with Chinese charac­ter­istics, the position of Western anti-China forces to pressure for urgent reform won’t change, and they’ll continue to point the spearhead of Western­izing, splitting, and “Color Revolu­tions” at China. In the face of these threats, we must not let down our guard or decrease our vigilance.” 

As a remedy to combat these evils, the document concludes with the prescription of four measures, including instructing party members and cadres in distin­guishing between “correct” and “false” theories, to strictly adhere to the principle of the Party’s control of media, and to “consci­en­tiously strengthen management of the ideological battlefield”.

From Document No. 9 (2013), a few months after Xi’s first election as supreme party leader, a direct line leads to Xi’s “coronation speech” at the 19th Party Congress in October 2017. At the Party Congress, the “Chairman of Every­thing,” who had already de facto been re-elected for life, arrived at the zenith of his power after having elimi­nated numerous intra-party rivals[17] and having repressed critics and remnants of independent civil society throughout China. [18] In his report to the party congress, he elevates the “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Charac­ter­istics in a New Era” and the “Socialist Rule of Law” to binding party policies with consti­tu­tional status. He also coined the phrase “Community with a Shared Future for Mankind”[19] as an expression of China’s intention to shape the world, and as a code for China’s geoeco­nomic expansion.

Against the backdrop of China’s trans­for­mation into a total­i­tarian surveil­lance state, in parallel to the elimi­nation of the principle of collective leadership as intro­duced by Deng Xiaoping, which essen­tially took place during Xi’s first term as party leader from 2012 to 2017, the close alliance with the dictator Putin can be under­stood as a function of China’s internal devel­opment. The unlikely pair of Xi, a risk-conscious man charac­terized by strategic patience, and Putin, a political gambler, are not only concerned with cooper­ation in the geopo­litical confrontation with the USA, but also with a joint ideological defensive struggle against liber­alism, consti­tu­tional democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. The events in Ukraine also form the backdrop for political action in China. Not only Putin, but also Xi perceives the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in the fall of 2004 and the “Euromaidan” in Kyiv in 2013/​2014 as a risk to his own system of government.

•  Xi’s rise with his election as General Secretary of the CCP, Chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission, and President in November 2012 and March 2013, respectively,
• the subse­quent consol­i­dation of the party’s monopoly on power and the elimi­nation of numerous intra-party rivals,
• Xi’s attainment of sole rule through his re-election in October 2017 as General Secretary and in March 2018 as Chairman of the Central Military Commission and President (poten­tially) for lifetime, [20]
• and China’s geoeco­nomic expansion along the “Silk Road”

are occurring in parallel with

• the Euromaidan in Kyiv,
• Moscow’s illegal occupation of Crimea and inter­vention in eastern Ukraine in spring 2014,
• Ukraine’s continued rapprochement with the EU (entry into force of the Associ­ation Agreement on July 1, visa-free travel with the Schengen Area since June 2017),
• and Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine since February 24, 2022.

It is therefore worth­while to take a look at China’s domestic political devel­op­ments in the years since Xi Jinping took power in 2012. This is a period in which the party’s control of state insti­tu­tions and its taking over all areas of life, elimi­nating judicial oversight, has progressed dynam­i­cally. Among prominent party ideol­o­gists and theorists, the influence of the anti-liberal and anti-democ­ratic German consti­tu­tional lawyer and Nazi apologist Carl Schmitt is evident. He also left even deeper traces in Russia.[21]

The starting point and trigger for contem­porary Chinese discus­sions about the relationship between “law” and “power” is usually a perceived threat from “outside”, an external “enemy,” often identified in the form of “Western values.” These are then countered by norms “with a Chinese character.” Schmitt’s dichotomy of “friend/​enemy” as the essence of politics, and the relationship between legality and legit­imacy as a poten­tially system-threat­ening tension, are considered important cognitive parameters in the intel­lectual discussion in China.[22]

From this point of view, China’s “peace initia­tives” to resolve the conflict between Ukraine and Russia appear in a new light. Beijing’s “peace plans” are generally described by Western analysts as non-committal, generally unpro­ductive proposals whose main goals are not to contributing to conflict resolution but essen­tially serve to portray Beijing as a “neutral” conflict mediator (while concealing its bias in favor of Russia) and as an appeal to stop further escalation.[23] However, if one views the Chinese documents through the lens of “Xi Jinping Thought,” they also become an expression of the funda­mental ideological convic­tions of China’s supreme Party and State leader, and of China’s enormous desire to shape world affairs.

3. Xi’s Trauma of the Collapse of the Soviet Union and the CPSU

Xi’s key “trauma” that has been guiding the thinking and actions of the rising party official since the late 1980s is the collapse of the USSR and, above all, the silent demise of the exhausted and delegit­imized Communist Party of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991.[24] The narrative of the ignominious, uncon­tested capit­u­lation of Soviet socialism and the Eastern Bloc in the systemic compe­tition with an “arrogant” West runs like a thread through Xi’s thinking. The lesson learned: We must do every­thing to prevent something like this from happening in China. That would be self-abandonment and the end of the Chinese people’s political existence, ruled by the Party. It would be a regression to the 19th century, when the Middle Kingdom, under the Qing Dynasty, was defense­lessly at the mercy of the Western colonial powers and held down by “unequal treaties.”[25] Xi’s findings only partially coincide with Putin’s well-known dictum that the collapse of the Soviet Union is the “greatest geopo­litical catastrophe of the 20th century.”[26] Unlike Putin, Xi sees the failure of the Communist Party as the primary cause of the implosion  of the Soviet empire. In his view, the Communist Party’s incom­pe­tence, its internal erosion, and above all, its lack of self-belief are to blame for the West’s victory in the Cold War.[27]

Xi summa­rized his analysis of the “primal catastrophe” in detail in an opening speech for a course for young cadres at the Central Party School (National Academy of Admin­is­tration) in Beijing at the beginning of the spring semester of 2022. It was published on June 30, 2023, as a signed article by Xi in the party newspaper Qiúshì 求是.[28] A longer quote is appro­priate here:

“A large number of facts show that if a political party loses its ideals and convic­tions, it will lose its spiritual bonds, become a rabble, and scatter like birds and beasts when it encounters storms. If a party member cadre loses his ideals and convic­tions, he will lose his political soul and will be defeated when he encounters tests. The most important thing for young cadres to take over the class is to do a good job as Comrade Deng Xiaoping said, ‘the class of the heroic spirit of adhering to the direction of the revolu­tionary struggle,’ that is, the class of upholding the belief in Marxism and fighting for the lofty ideal of communism and the common ideal of socialism with Chinese charac­ter­istics.

If the people we have culti­vated no longer believe in Marxism and communism, and do not hold up the banner of socialism with Chinese charac­ter­istics, there will be a tragedy like the drastic changes in Eastern Europe, the collapse of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the disin­te­gration of the Soviet Union.”[29]

In his conclusion, Xi urges junior officials to strengthen their faith in Marxism-Leninism and to relent­lessly punish dissenting opinions. It is striking that in his appeal to the junior cadres, he delib­er­ately uses religiously connoted vocab­ulary such as “spiritual bonds,” “political soul,” “ideals,” or “faith,” which must be strengthened to avoid sinking into a dark morass of self-abandonment and disin­te­gration and perishing.[30]

You have to let it sink in: For Xi, the coura­geous and non-violent uprising of the people for freedom and democracy in Central and Eastern Europe, ground­breaking for the reuni­fi­cation of Germany, is nothing but a tragic disaster that seems to pain him almost physi­cally. He confronts the poison of Western values ​​(and religions!) with his deep faith in Marxism and, above all, in the Communist Party, which shines through in Xi’s speech like a secular religion. Trans­lated into geopo­litical terms, this means: It was the failure of the CPSU that brought about the end of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall, opening the way for the West’s geopo­litical expansion. The political West’s victory in the Cold War led to NATO’s eastward expansion and the – horribile dictu – “unipolar moment” in the early 1990s, with the USA as the only remaining major power capable of imposing its values ​​of democracy and human rights throughout the world.

More than three decades after the peaceful upheaval in Central and Eastern Europe on the one hand, and the violent suppression of the demon­stra­tions during the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 3–4, 1989, in Beijing on the other, and strengthened by the party’s systematic and ruthless actions against its critics and China’s brilliant rise to become the second global super­power after America, Xi proudly presents his concept of a multi­polar world with China at its center and the Chinese model as a shining example for the world.

4. “Law” and “Force” and the Primacy of the CCP

Chinese domestic politics is also about ideological defense against the West. The defense against and reinter­pre­tation of Western-influ­enced concepts and norms such as freedom, democracy, and the rule of law are at the center of the discourse of CCP spin doctors and consti­tu­tional lawyers. The conceptual devel­opment of the “Chinese Rule of Law,” with its enshrinement of the prece­dence of the party and a limited role for consti­tu­tional juris­diction, summa­rized in Xi’s formula of a “strong socialist consti­tu­tional state,” gained signif­icant momentum following Xi’s election as party chairman at the 18th Party Congress in November 2012. One of China’s leading legal theorists with a strong influence on discus­sions within the CCP, the legal scholar and exponent of “Xi Jinping Thought” Jiang Shigong (born 1967),[31] developed

“based on a critique of the Western claim to superi­ority of a supposedly universal under­standing of consti­tu­tion­alism, his own approach of a ‘party-state consti­tu­tion­alism with Chinese charac­ter­istics.’ ”[32]

Jiang’s publi­ca­tions focus on the relationship between law and politics and the concept of the “Chinese consti­tu­tional state.” The term “socialist consti­tu­tional state with Chinese charac­ter­istics,” which he helped to coin, arose in contrast to and decisively differ­en­tiated from a concept of the consti­tu­tional state in which the validity and imple­men­tation of the norms guaranteed in the consti­tution are guaranteed by an independent judiciary.[33]

Jiang elabo­rates on the idea of ​​distancing oneself from the “Western” concept of the rule of law in his 2018 exegesis of one of the CCP chair­man’s most important speeches, Xi’s report to the 19th CPC National Congress of October 18, 2017.[34] He begins by lamenting that the “construction of China’s rule of law gradually fell into the erroneous zone of Western concepts in the process of studying the Western rule of law, and consciously or not, the notions of  ‘rule of law’ 法治 and ‘rule of man’ 人治 came to be seen as antag­o­nistic”.  However, Xi said, these are not opposites but rather complement each other. A society governed by the rule of law, he argues, must not ignore the “key role of leaders and great person­al­ities, of political parties and the masses in history.” Therefore, the CPC Central Committee has revised its guide­lines for building the rule of law since the 18th Party Congress (2012) to recognize “party leadership as a crucial component.” Furthermore, the Central Committee also incor­po­rated party norms and party disci­pline regula­tions, derived from the Party Consti­tution, into China’s legal system. In this context, Jiang Shigong criti­cized the “compet­itive elections manip­u­lated by money and the mass media” in Western democ­racies, which had reduced “democracy to electocracy.”[35]

According to Jiang, Xi had made it clear earlier that

“‘Party leadership is the most basic feature of Socialism with Chinese Charac­ter­istics, and the most basic guarantee of socialist rule of law’. On this basis, the report to the Nineteenth National Congress further empha­sizes that ‘The Party leads every­thing: Party, government, army, people, and scholars’. ‘The Party is the most exalted force of political leadership’.

One might say that the core of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Charac­ter­istics for a new Era is the new system for compre­hensive Party leadership of the state on the theoretical and insti­tu­tional level that it proposes.”[36]

This “sinicized” concept of the rule of law, linked to the party’s leadership role, was finally incor­po­rated into the preamble of the Consti­tution (paragraph 7) by the National People’s Congress in March 2018 stating that China is a “strong socialist consti­tu­tional state.”[37]

Concluding, Xi Jinping, the CCP’s leadership bodies, and influ­ential consti­tu­tional lawyers and scholars such as Jiang Shigong copied the concept of the rule of law and integrated it into the system of Chinese party dicta­torship, initially discred­iting it as a vehicle for Western influence and an attempt to “Westernize” the Chinese system, then adopting it, and finally completely re-evalu­ating it – from the description of an order in which an independent judiciary monitors and, if necessary, corrects the political decisions of the executive, to a system in which the judiciary and executive are totally dependent on a party that completely dominates and permeates both the state and society. The superi­ority of the “rule of law with Chinese charac­ter­istics” over its “Western” counterpart is postu­lated, claiming that only the Chinese variant embodies the “true” will of the people and thus brings the concept of the rule of law to perfection.

In an earlier essay from 2010, Jiang Shigong had already justified his “historical-empirical” approach as a means of countering the “Ameri­can­ization of Chinese consti­tu­tional thought.”[38] According to Jiang, the splitting of the indivisible trinity of party, military, and state under Deng Xiaoping in the spirit of “separation of powers” led to the “political tragedy of Tiananmen” in 1989 and thus defin­i­tively failed. China learned from this and developed its unique state party system, “combining the system of multi­party cooper­ation and the people’s congress system, a combi­nation embodied in the trinity system of rule.”[39]

The negation and reval­u­ation of concepts of “Western” jurispru­dence is now being forged into a verbal weapon aimed back at the West: the newly developed concept of the rule of law with Chinese charac­ter­istics is to be exported back to the world as a shining example for imitation. It is about nothing less than “creating a new order for human civilization that both transcends and absorbs Western civilization”.[40]

Jiang explains:

“This means not only the end to the global political landscape of Western civilization’s domination since the age of great discov­eries, but also means breaking the global dominance of Western civilization in the past 500 years in the cultural sense, and hence ushering in a new era in human civilization. In the report to the Nineteenth Party Congress, this new era is described as follows: ‘We should respect the diversity of civiliza­tions. In handling relations among civiliza­tions, let us replace estrangement with exchange, clashes with mutual learning, and superi­ority with coexis­tence’. This clearly begins from the stand­point of Chinese civilization, negates the two Western post-Cold War civiliza­tional devel­opment paths of ‘the end of history’ and the ‘clash of civiliza­tions’, and paints a new portrait of the devel­opment of the civilization of mankind.”[41]

Admit­tedly, this ambitious and clear announcement of a global “turning point” away from the “Western” and toward the Chinese devel­opment model is a “semi-official” academic inter­pre­tation of a Xi speech. But the same thinking underlies numerous official state­ments and speeches by Xi. Aware of the superi­ority of the “Chinese model,” Xi derives the central foreign policy goal declared in his report to the 19th Party Congress in 2017, the estab­lishment of a “Community with a Shared Future for Mankind.” The term serves to legit­imize an inter­na­tional order under Chinese leadership. Since 2017, Beijing has used the phrase “Community with a Shared Future for Mankind” to promote its global propa­ganda campaign for China’s strategy of geoeco­nomic expansion along the “Silk Road” (One Belt One Road, 一 带 一 路 yi dai yi lu, or Belt and Road Initiative/​BRI for short).[42]

5. China’s 12-Point Plan on Ukraine – Ambition and Reality

The Chinese position paper on resolving the “Ukraine crisis,”[43] published in February 2023, is Beijing’s most compre­hensive and important “peace initiative” to date.[44] Does this “12-Point Plan” live up to the self-declared ambition to provide a genuine Chinese contri­bution to resolving the military conflict in the spirit of promoting the “Community with a Shared Future for Mankind” and world peace?

The answer is at first glance a resounding “no”. There is a huge gap between the conceptual sophis­ti­cation of the “Community of a Shared Future for Mankind,” as well as the ambitious claim of Beijing’s political rhetoric surrounding its euphemisti­cally named “peace plan,” and the opera­tional suitability of the paper as a roadmap for conflict resolution. However, it would be too simplistic to describe the text as merely a “smoke­screen” to conceal Beijing’s pro-Russian bias, a collection of generic rules for dispute settlement, or merely a “broad adoption” of Russian positions.[45] These assess­ments are correct, but do not do the paper justice when viewed as a whole. Beijing reveals funda­mental geostrategic positions in it. It makes clear that it has a genuine interest in a timely conflict resolution, one that is not merely derived from its alliance with Moscow.

The proposals compiled in the paper are located at five different levels of abstraction, which are general and non-committal for China as long as they concern the opera­tional details of negoti­a­tions or a ceasefire. However, they become concrete as soon as they reflect global or sectoral Chinese interests. Thus the paper as a whole has a strongly self-refer­ential character.

• First, a couple of points are vague and non-binding, and do not commit China to anything.

(1) Ceasefire (point 3): Call on the parties to exercise “restraint” and encourage them to begin direct talks;

(2) Initi­ation of peace negoti­a­tions (4): Both sides should sit down and talk to each other;

(3) Human­i­tarian aid (5), to be provided under UN coordination;

(4) Protection of civilians and prisoners of war (6): The modal­ities remain open;

(5) Promoting post-war recon­struction (12).

• Second, in four of the afore­men­tioned areas, China at least signals its willingness to provide logis­tical, though not political, contri­bu­tions:

(1) China is willing to play a “constructive role” in creating condi­tions and “platforms” for negoti­a­tions (point 4).

(2) Provide assis­tance in the field of prisoner exchanges (6).

(3) Support for Ukrainian grain exports as part of a “Cooper­ation Initiative on Global Food Security” proposed by China (9).[46]

(4) Willingness to provide assis­tance and assume a “constructive role” in recon­struction (12).

• Third, distraction from China’s parti­sanship in favor of Russia and the assertion of Beijing’s alleged equidis­tance from Kyiv and Moscow, in order to convince the “Global South” about China’s positive role as a “peace­maker” and thus strengthen China’s inter­na­tional “soft power.” The root cause of the conflict, Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, is concealed. Instead, the Russian narrative is being adopted (see especially point 2, “abandoning the cold war mentality”). In doing so, Beijing also serves tradi­tional anti-American clichés prevalent in the Global South.
• Fourth, China sees its immediate economic interests as being compro­mised by “unilateral (not approved by the UN Security Council) sanctions,” especially third-country sanctions (“long-arm juris­diction”) (see point 10). The same holds true for the collapse or damage of indus­trial and other supply chains (point 11).
• Fifth, China asserts its core strategic interests:

(1) Behind the rhetoric against the “Cold War” in point 2 lies China’s main concern and Xi’s trauma, as described above, about the victory of the “West” or Western values ​​such as democracy and freedom, which, from Beijing’s perspective, would not only jeopardize the desired US-China “duopoly” but ultimately also undermine the Communist Party’s monopoly of power in China (see chapters 3 and 4). This is the reason why Beijing shares with Moscow the perception of the war against Ukraine as a function of the strategic conflict with the US.

(2) Warning against the use or threat of use of NBC weapons (point 8). This is China’s second core strategic concern. Beijing is committed to preventing an uncon­trol­lable escalation leading to a global catastrophe and has repeatedly made this clear to Moscow by drawing up “red lines.”[47] Of security relevance to China is also the safety of nuclear power plants in Ukraine, against the damaging of which is warned (point 7).

The latter core concerns reappear in a 6‑point paper with China’s BRICS partner Brazil from May 2024,[48] a short version of the 12-point plan. Its objective is to convince the Global South of China’s commitment to peace and alleged impar­tiality.[49] China’s strategic concerns are at the forefront: stopping escalation (point 1), avoiding the use of weapons of mass destruction and preventing nuclear prolif­er­ation (4), avoiding attacks on nuclear power plants (5), and restoring the stability of global supply chains and trade routes (6). What is new is the explicit support for holding an inter­na­tional peace conference with the inclusive partic­i­pation of “all parties,” including Ukraine.[50] However, this is relativized by China’s boycott of the Ukraine conference on the Bürgen­stock, hosted by Switzerland in June 2024, and its welcoming of US talks with Russia, excluding Kyiv.

Against this background, we can draw the following conclu­sions about China’s role in a political conflict resolution process:

• Given China’s strategic and economic interests at stake, Beijing is inter­ested in an early end of the war, even if this could free up resources for Washington to increase its military focus on Northeast Asia.
• Trump will not succeed in discon­necting Russia from China by courting Putin (“reverse Nixon”). The shared geostrategic interests of Russia and China in pushing NATO back from the Russian “sphere of influence” and Moscow’s economic depen­dence on Beijing are too relevant for that. During any negoti­ation process, Beijing will be careful to always act in close coordi­nation and together with Moscow. It will not allow Trump, whose unpre­dictability makes him more of a risk than an oppor­tunity in the eyes of Zhong­nanhai, to derail its alliance policy.
• Whether and how actively China will engage in a political-diplo­matic process and thus incur political and, if necessary, security risks, will depend on Beijing’s cool cost-benefit calcu­lation. The most important parameter is the question of what geopo­litical precedent a ceasefire and peace agreement with Ukraine could set for China’s periphery in Northeast Asia from Beijing’s perspective, especially in light of China’s robust actions in the South China Sea in violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea[51], and its “reuni­fi­cation” project with Taiwan, which Xi Jinping is striving to achieve as part of the “Chinese Dream,” and for which he explicitly does not rule out the use of military force.[52] Just as China wants to see its “legroom” and rule-making sover­eignty respected in “its” periphery, Beijing will ensure that Moscow is granted decision-making sover­eignty in the “Russian” sphere of influence.
• Beijing supports Moscow’s war aim of “neutral­izing” Ukraine and denying it NATO membership. China also agrees with Russia that no troops from NATO countries (“Coalition of the Willing”) should be stationed in Ukraine as an inter­na­tional guarantee to secure a ceasefire. Beijing shares Moscow’s view that the deployment of European troops in Ukraine should be viewed as a “direct extension of NATO influence” and is therefore unacceptable to Russia.[53] Whether China will go so far as to offer its own guarantor role to secure a ceasefire, in coordi­nation with Moscow, is something Beijing will decide in due course. At this year’s Munich Security Conference, a Chinese security expert suggested a joint Chinese-Indian contingent as a “collective security guarantee,” arguing that troops from “neutral” countries would be acceptable to Moscow.[54]
• Compared to Xi Jingping’s overriding interest in setting a global precedent by demar­cating spheres of interest in Central and Eastern Europe in Russia’s interest (and thus preventing Ukraine from joining NATO), China’s other goals appear secondary, but remain important. These include, above all, keeping export markets open and returning to economic global­ization by ending sanctions regimes and restoring disrupted supply chains.

Against this backdrop, the United States and the European Union must be aware that restricting Ukraine’s sover­eignty and freedom of foreign policy decision-making will have reper­cus­sions far beyond Central and Eastern Europe. China will derive from this the right to set Chinese rules and ignore inter­na­tional law within its self-defined “greater space.” This could poten­tially legit­imize its actions in the milita­rization of the South China Sea and its resis­tance to the passage of foreign military vessels through the Taiwan Strait. This would seriously damage the univer­sality of inter­na­tional law and the rules-based order, as well as the immediate US interest in the military protection of its ally Taiwan and freedom of navigation in the maritime space of Northeast Asia.

Footnotes

[1] Cf. Sören Urbansky/​Martin Wagner, China und Russland. Kurze Geschichte einer langen Beziehung. Berlin 2025, 244.

[2] China does not only  supply “dual-use” goods, but also drones produced in China. 70% of Russian imports of machine tools and 90% of military-relevant electronic products hail from China, making it the “key enabler of Moscow’s war machine”. Cf. Grzegorz Stec/​Eva Seiwert, China on Peace in Ukraine: What to Expect Based on the Track Record of Beijing’s Narra­tives, 5.3.2025, https://www.stopfake.org/en/china-on-peace-in-ukraine-what-to-expect-based-on-the-track-record-of-beijing-s-narratives/. This is reflected in NATO’s assessment in the Summit Commu­niqué on the alliance’s 75th anniversary of 10 July 2024, point 26: “The PRC has become a decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine through its so-called ‘no limits’ partnership and its large-scale support for Russia’s defense indus­trial base.”

[3] For example, at the Shanghai Cooper­ation Organi­zation (SCO) summit in Samarkand on 15/​16 September 2022, Xi clearly empha­sized the indepen­dence, sover­eignty and terri­torial integrity of Kazakhstan, and, with a view to Moscow and the war in Ukraine, repeatedly spoke out against the use and prolif­er­ation of nuclear weapons, not least on the occasion of Federal Chancellor Scholz’s visit to Beijing on 4 November 2022 or to Putin personally in March 2023. Cf. Three Years of War in Ukraine: The Chinese-Russian Alliance passes the Test. In: Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW) Commentary 639, 20.02.2025), 3 See also FT of 5.7.2023, China warns Putin from using nuclear weapons. https://www.ft.com/content/61262024–4260-4beb-ac7e-0fabda52c145

[4] While the GA resolution A/RES/ES-11/7 intro­duced by the UKR explicitly condemns the Russian war of aggression and calls for Russia’s immediate withdrawal, the draft submitted by Washington only contains a general call for a quick end to the conflict and lasting peace, which, however, has been expanded at the insti­gation of the Europeans to include a condem­nation of Russia and a demand for the restoration of Ukraine’s terri­torial integrity.  https://press.un.org/en/2025/ga12675.doc.htm

[5] “The Security Council ... 1. Implores a swift end to the conflict and further urges a lasting peace between Ukraine and the Russian Feder­ation.” This resolution 2774 (2025) of 24 February 2025 is likely to be one of the shortest resolu­tions in the history of the Security Council. https://docs.un.org/en/S/RES/2774(2025)

[6] Cf. Bogus/​Rodkiewicz, loc. cit., 5. According to the EU Commission, the trade volume in 2024 amounted to 731.2 billion euros. China was the third largest EU export market (8.3%) and largest supplier of goods with 21.3% of all imports into the EU. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?oldid=667358

[7] https://scheerpost.com/2025/03/07/chinese-foreign-minister-wang-yi-press-conference/

[8] Peaceful “reuni­fi­cation” with Taiwan is an integral part of the “Chinese Dream” (中国梦 Zhōngguó Mèng), first proclaimed by Xi Jinping in November 2012. In his final New Year’s address on December 31, 2024, Xi threatened that no one could stop China’s “reuni­fi­cation” with Taiwan. The people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait form “one family.” https://www.reuters.com/world/china/xi-says-no-one-can-stop-chinas-reunification-with-taiwan-2024–12-31/. Born on June 15, 1953, Xi Jinping is now over 70 years old. China experts suspect that he had the limitation of the term of office as party chairman and president to two five-year terms completely lifted by amending the party statutes and consti­tution in order to be able to realize this important part of the “Chinese dream” during his lifetime.

[9] Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated at his press conference on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress on March 7, 2025, in Beijing: “The two countries have found a path of ‘non-alliance, non-confrontation and not targeting any third party’ in devel­oping their relations.” He added: “It is a pioneering effort in forging a new model of major country relations, and has set a fine example for relations between neigh­boring countries. A mature, resilient and stable China-Russia relationship will not be swayed by any turn of events, let alone be subject to inter­ference by any third party. It is a constant in a turbulent world rather than a variable in geopo­litical games.” https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/wjbzhd/202503/t20250307_11571025.html

[10] Right at the beginning of the compre­hensive Decla­ration of Principles, the thrust of the Sino-Russian axis is made clear: It is about countering countries with hegemonic inten­tions that seek to overturn the existing inter­na­tional archi­tecture for selfish reasons under the guise of a “rules-based order.” The best counter­measure, the Decla­ration argues, is China’s vision of a “community with a shared future for mankind.” English text of the decla­ration at: https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/05/24/china-russia-joint-statement-new-era-75th-anniversary/ Original versions in Chinese and Russian are available on the websites of both govern­ments: https://www.chinanews.com.cn/gn/2024/05–16/10217948.shtml and http://kremlin.ru/supplement/6132

[11] In Chinese diction: 乌克兰危机 Wukelan weiji.

[12] Cf. Grzegorz Stec/​Eva Seiwert, op. cit., 2. This analysis appears in numerous official state­ments criti­cizing the West’s stance, see for example the statement by Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian of July 11, 2024: “We urge NATO to reflect on the root causes of the crisis and NATO’s own behavior, listen to the voice for good from the inter­na­tional community and contribute to de-escalation, instead of shifting blames onto others.” https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xw/fyrbt/lxjzh/202407/t20240730_11463257.html
The CCP propa­ganda daily paper Global Times puts it bluntly on September 29, 2024: “The root cause of the Ukraine crisis is clear. So is the reason why it is dragging on for so long. The US and the West, with their inherent arrogance and self-right­eousness, have been pushing forward NATO’s eastward expansion without taking into account the special historical and geographical sensi­tiv­ities of Russia and Ukraine, which ultimately led to the situation being out of control. As the initiator of the conflict, the US would rather prolong the conflict than end it, only to sustain its hegemony. During the more than two years’ time, many oppor­tu­nities for peace have been missed.” https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202409/1320539.shtml

[13] At the SCO summit in Samarkand (see note 2), Xi said in a speech on September 16, 2022: “We should guard against attempts by external forces to instigate ‘color revolution’, jointly oppose inter­ference in other countries’ internal affairs under any pretext and hold our future firmly in our own hands.”  https://english.news.cn/20220916/9a25ddd0a86848a09ef0b2a4e499a52d/c.html

[14] At the XVIII National Congress of the CPC on November 15, 2012.

[15] https://www.chinafile.com/document-9-chinafile-translation

[16] Wang Huning, born on 6.10.1955 in Shanghai, Romance studies and lawyer, member of the Politburo of the CCP since Nov. 2012, since October 2017 also member of the 7‑member Standing Committee of the Politburo.

[17] As part of the anti-corruption campaign launched by Xi in 2012, which targeted both “tigers” (high-ranking party officials) and “flies” (minor officials), a total of 1.34 million (!) party and state officials were reportedly subjected to disci­plinary proceedings under the auspices of the CCP’s Central Commission for Disci­pline Inspection (CCDI) between 2012 and 2017. Among them were 134 officials at the minis­terial or vice-minis­terial rank. See BBC report “Charting China’s ‘Great Purge’ under Xi” from October 23, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-41670162

[18] Cf. for example Klaus Mühlhahn, History of Modern China from the Qing Dynasty to the Present, Munich 2021, 609 ff.

[19] „Community with a Shared future for Mankind” is the official English trans­lation from 人类命运共同体reinlei mingyun gong tong ti.

[20] Through amending the Consti­tution (President) by removing the provision from Article 79, that the President shall hold office for “no more than two consec­utive terms.” Cf. the English text of the Consti­tution, https://www.chinajusticeobserver.com/law/x/constitution-of-china-20180318. The term limit of two five-year terms for the General Secretary of the CCP and Chairman of the State Council (President) had been intro­duced by Deng Xiaoping in 1982 as a bulwark against excesses during the 27-year reign of Mao Zedong, Party Chairman from the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 until his death in 1976.

[21] See Johannes Regen­brecht, In the Shadow of Carl Schmitt: Putin’s and Trump’s Ideas for the Division of Europe. Center for Liberal Modernism, February 27, 2025, https://libmod.de/im-schatten-von-carl-schmitt-putins-und-trumps-ideen-zur-aufteilung-europas/.

[22] Cf. Ryan Martínez Mitchell, Chinese Recep­tions of Carl Schmitt since 1929. In: Penn State Journal of Law & Inter­na­tional Affairs, 8/​1 (2020), 181–263, here 263: “In general, Schmitt’s status as a source of critical perspec­tives on liberal consti­tu­tional democracy is by now quite firmly estab­lished in Chinese intel­lectual discourse. It is less certain, however, whether his thought will help to build any new special path for Chinese political modernity, or any lasting domestic or inter­na­tional legal structures.”

[23] Grzegorz Steck/​Eva Seiwert, op.cit., 3.

[24] Xi witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Tiananmen Square massacre in May 1989 from the southern city of Ningde, where he served as municipal party secretary. In 1990, he became secretary of the municipal party committee of Fuzhou, a major port city with access to the Pacific Ocean and capital of Fujian Province, just 255 km across the Taiwan Strait from the Taiwanese capital, Taipei.

[25] Cf. Klaus Mühlhahn, op.cit., 100 ff.

[26] In Putin’s State of the Nation Address on April 25, 2005. https://laender-analysen.de/russland-analysen/63/putins-botschaft-zur-lage-der-nation-am-25-april-2005

[27] Chinese consti­tu­tional lawyer and philosopher Jiang Shigong argues along similar lines in an exegesis of Xi Jinping’s report to the 19th CCP Party Congress of October 18, 2017. He argues that the erosion of the CPSU did not begin with Gorbachev’s “new thinking,” but rather under Khrushchev, under whom the “philo­sophical weapon of Marxism-Leninism” became blunt for the first time. China did not suffer the Soviet fate because Mao Zedong criti­cized Khrushchev’s “revisionist line” from the outset and pushed for China’s complete break with the Soviet model. See Jiang Shigong, Philosophy and History: An Inter­pre­tation of the “Xi Jinping Era” Based on the Report to the 19th CCP Party Congress. In: Daniel Leese/​Shi Ming (eds.), Contem­porary Chinese Thought, Munich 2023, 272–328, here 318f.

[28] A 14-day organ of the CPC Central Committee, literally trans­lated as “Seeking Truth.” Title of the article: “Strive to grow into a pillar of talent who is loyal and reliable to the party and the people and is worthy of the important respon­si­bil­ities of the times”. In: Qiúshì 2023/​13, June 30, 2023, http://www.qstheory.cn/dukan/qs/2023–06/30/c_1129723161.htm

[29] Ibid. Emphasis on the last paragraph by the author.

[30] Cf. Massimo Intro­vigne, Xi Jinping: The End of the Soviet Union is “Too Painful to Look Back Upon”. In: Bitter Winter. A Magazine on Religious Liberty and Human Rights, July 13th, 2023. https://bitterwinter.org/xi-jinping-the-end-of-the-soviet-union-is-too-painful-to-look-back-upon/

[31] Cf. Daniel Leese/​Shi Ming, op. cit., 616 and the article in Wikipedia, Jiang Shigong, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Shigong. Jiang, currently president of Minzu University in Beijing, affil­iated with the CCP’s United Front (previ­ously a professor of law at the presti­gious Beijing University), is an anti-liberal “conser­v­ative socialist.” He gained government experience from 2004 to 2008 as a staff member of the Liaison Office of the Chinese State Council (government) in Hong Kong. He is considered a staunch advocate of the unchal­lengeable leadership role of the Communist Party, which according to Jiang is enshrined in an “unwritten Chinese consti­tution,” and is one of the most important trans­lators of the works of the anti-liberal German consti­tu­tional lawyer Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) and a protag­onist of his ideas in China.

[32] Charlotte Kroll, Carl Schmitt in China. Liber­al­ismus und Rechtsstaats­diskurse, 1989–2018 (Carl Schmitt in China: Liber­alism and the Rule of Law Discourses, 1989–2018), Heidelberg 2020, 174. https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/31452/1/Kroll_2022_Carl_Schmitt_in_China.pdf

[33] Cf. Op.cit., 196.

[34]  Jiang Shigong, Philosophy and History: Inter­preting the “Xi Jinping-Era” through Xi’s Report to the Nineteenth National Congress of the CCCP. In: Australian Centre on China in the World. Posted on 11 May 2018 by Gloria Davis. https://www.thecpe.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/2018–5‑11-Jiang-Shigong-on-%E2%80%98Philosophy-and-History-Interpreting-the-%E2%80%9CXi-Jinping-Era%E2%80%9D-through-Xi%E2%80%99s-Report-to-the-Nineteenth-National-Congress-of-the-CCP%E2%80%99-The-China-Story-Booklet.pdf Techni­cally, Xi’s speech is a carefully edited report of the previous 18th Central Committee to the 19th Party Congress, which opens a new five-year period and announces the political program for the five-year period 2017–2022. It was coordi­nated over years in advance and approved by the Central Committee plenum.

[35] Jiang Shigong, op. cit., 19f.  Here, the influence of Carl Schmitt’s criticism of elections and plural­istic parlia­men­tarism in his Consti­tu­tional Theory (1928) and The Intel­lectual History of Contem­porary Parlia­men­tarism (1923) can be clearly felt.

[36] Jiang Shigong, op. cit., 48, with reference to Xi’s report to the 4th Plenum of the 18th Central Committee of October 29, 2014.

[37] Cf. Charlotte Kroll, op.cit., 186.

[38] Jiang Shigong, Written and Unwritten Consti­tu­tions: A New Approach to the Study of Consti­tu­tional Government in China. In: Modern China 36 (1), 12–46, here 41.

[39] Op.cit., 36.

[40] Jiang Shigong, op.cit., 33.

[41] Jiang Shigong, op.cit., 34.

[42] Official Chinese website at https://eng.yidaiyilu.gov.cn/. Launched in 2013, the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) now comprises 149 member states.

[43] China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis, updated February 24, 2023, 09:00h, published on the website of the Chinese AM. https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/zy/gb/202405/t20240531_11367485.html

[44] The paper was preceded and followed by shorter state­ments, all of which are reflected in the 12 points. In May 2024, China and Brazil jointly issued a “Six-Point Consensus” on the “Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis.” This also added no new content but set an important new tone with regard to the bilateral format and as an initiative to engage the Global South. In May 2023, Beijing appointed Special Envoy for Euro-Asian Affairs Li Hui as Special Repre­sen­tative for China’s Ukraine initia­tives. Since the fall of 2024, China has been operating a “Group of Friends for Peace” within the United Nations. See, for example, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/wjbzhd/202409/t20240929_11500459.html

[45] Cf. Sören Urbansky/​Martin Wagner, op.cit., 249.

[46] See Xinhua report of July 8, 2022, China proposes cooper­ation initiative on global food security at G20 meeting, https://english.news.cn/20220708/d0e86c46b7764a38b2320a62b72864dd/c.html

[47] See footnote 3.

[48] “Common Under­standing between China and Brazil on Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis,” announced on May 23, 2024, at a meeting between AM Wang Yi and Presi­dential Advisor Celso Amorim in Beijing. https://www.gov.br/planalto/en/latest-news/2024/05/brazil-and-china-present-joint-proposal-for-peace-negotiations-with-the-participation-of-russia-and-ukraine

[49] On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September 2024, China advocated for the estab­lishment of a “Friends for Peace” group to support the plan, which (according to a statement by the Chinese Foreign Ministry in September 2024) is reportedly supported by over 110 countries.

[50] “... support an inter­na­tional peace conference held at a proper time that is recog­nized by both Russia and Ukraine, with equal partic­i­pation of all parties as well as fair discussion of all peace plans.” (Point 2)

[51] As stated by the unanimous Award issued by the Tribunal consti­tuted under Annex VII to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in an arbitration insti­tuted by the Republic of the Philip­pines against the People’s Republic of China, 12.7. 2016. https://docs.pca-cpa.org/2016/07/PH-CN-20160712-Press-Release-No-11-English.pdf

[52] Xi Jinping in his report on the XXth Party conference on October 16, 2022, 52: “Taiwan is China’s Taiwan. Resolving the Taiwan question is a matter for the Chinese, a matter that must be resolved by the Chinese. We will continue to strive for peaceful reuni­fi­cation with the greatest sincerity and the utmost effort, but we will never promise to renounce the use of force, and we reserve the option of taking all measures necessary.” https://english.www.gov.cn/news/topnews/202210/25/content_WS6357df20c6d0a757729e1bfc.html

[53] This was the statement made by former PLA officer and security expert at Tsinghua University, Zhou Bo, in a Deutsche Welle interview on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on February 17, 2025, https://www.dw.com/en/chinese-military-expert-donald-trump-has-asked-china-to-help-make-peace/video-7163318

[54] Statement by Zhou Bo in the same Interview.