Why didn't China send military aid to Russia in War in Ukraine and why won't it? [ENG/UA]

On the 20th of March, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin met in Moscow. As usual, there were some great photo ops and a joint statement filled with not so subtle criticism of the US. However, despite what US intelligence predicted, there was nothing about China providing military support to Russia. And Xi even convinced Putin to endorse China's new 12 point peace plan. So in this article, we're going to have a look at why China has so far refrained from sending military aid to Russia, what China wants from Ukraine and how this might change in the future.

Before we get into it, a bit of history. China and Russia established diplomatic relations in the 17th century when the Romanov ruled Russian empire, expanded eastward and found itself sharing a border with the Chinese empire ruled by the Manchu dynasty. The two powers signed the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689, which demarcated their borders and established trade relations. Relations deteriorated in the 19th century when Russia's territorial expansion in Central Asia resulted in the conquest of China's eastern territories when the Communist Party took power in 1949. Relations quickly improved. The 1950 Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance marked a turning point with the Soviet Union providing military and economic assistance to China. However, the relationship became strained in the 1960s when, as the two big communist superpowers, they started getting a bit competitive. There was a brief border war in 1969 and tensions were permanently high until the 1991 Sino-Soviet border agreement.

From then on, things have only got cozier. In 1992, the two countries declared they were pursuing a constructive partnership. In 1996, they said it had become a strategic partnership, and in 2001 they signed the Treaty of Good-neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, which is maybe the most chummily named treaty in the history of international relations. The relationship has been accelerated by good personal relations between Putin and Xi. Xi once described Putin as his best friend and colleague and overlapping economic interests. Russia has become China's largest supplier of both oil and military equipment, and China is particularly keen on Russian oil because it doesn't have to be shipped by sea. Essentially, a lot of China's oil comes from the Middle East and has to be shipped to southern China via the Malacca Strait, which creates a vulnerable supply chain that could hypothetically be cut off by the US Navy in a conflict.

Anyway, this is why when Putin invaded Ukraine, many people expected China to actively support Russia. After all, on February the 4th, just a few weeks before the invasion, the two countries announced that their partnership had, quote, no limits. However, this isn't quite how things have panned out. China didn't support Russia on the various UN motions criticizing Putin's invasion, instead choosing to abstain. And Chinese officials have conspicuously stopped using the term no limits in their official readouts. Similarly, while trade has increased since the West imposed sanctions on Russia with Russian exports to China doubling from $49 billion in 2020 to $113 billion in 2022. China has so far refused to provide military support to Russia, while some private Chinese companies have sold certain equipment to private Russian companies, including drones, body armor and a small number of assault rifles, they've also been selling drones to Ukraine, and China has been careful to only export equipment that it considers dual use, i.e. stuff that could plausibly be used for non-military purposes. So why is this? Why hasn't China sent military aid to Russia?

Well, no one knows for sure, but there are a couple of plausible reasons. For starters, it looks like Putin kept Xi in the dark about Ukraine, which will have both strained relations and made providing support more difficult. When Putin invaded, Xi was conspicuously quiet, and multiple Chinese officials told the Financial Times that Putin didn't tell Xi in advance. Second, China is currently trying to create a wedge between Europe and the US, and supporting Russia would only unify the West further. Third, China probably realizes that Ukraine isn't the best place to fight a proxy war with the US. While China would love to inflict a strategic defeat on the US, the Russian army is underperforming in Ukraine, and Ukraine currently has NATO's full support. So it's probably not a great place to start a proxy war. Fourth, China probably knows that Russia is going to become its economic vassal either way because, well, Russia doesn't have any other options. Even if China doesn't provide Russia with military support, Russia will still sell China oil and gas on the cheap because, well, it can't sell those quantities of hydrocarbons to anyone else.

So what does China actually want out of Ukraine? Well, as we see it, there are two things. First, China probably genuinely does want to negotiate peace in Ukraine, even just for selfish reasons, having already negotiated a normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. This would allow China to present itself as a diplomatic superpower and, by contrast, paint the US as an irresponsible warmonger. It would also increase, China's soft power in much of the developing world, which mainly wants the war to end as fast as possible to bring down inflation. It's also possible both Ukraine and Russia have said they're open to the proposal, and China has leverage over both countries because Chinese military support would likely prove decisive.

Second, China wants to use Ukraine to force a wedge between Europe and the US. Polling suggests that a plurality of people in some European countries, including Germany, Italy and Spain, just want the war to end as soon as possible. By pitching itself as the peacemaker, China is trying to draw these Europeans and their governments away from the US, which has made it clear that it doesn't want to see the war ending anytime soon. So you get the idea. China isn't supplying arms to Russia because acting as a peacemaker better suits its strategic interests. And Russia doesn't have any leverage over China to convince it to do otherwise.

However, this doesn't necessarily mean that China won't end up supplying arms to Russia. While a China brokered peace settlement is the best outcome for China a total Russian defeat is the worst because it would be a strategic victory for the US and destabilise one of China's main strategic allies. Therefore, if peace negotiations collapse and Russia continues to struggle on the battlefield, there's a good chance that China will step in. And this would be bad news for anyone who doesn't want World War Three.