If he saved more incisive words in reaffirming his anti-Western alliance with Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping fully adopted the Russian president’s rhetoric on Friday (16) and put the fight against “color revolutions” as a priority.
“We must prevent external forces from instigating a color revolution,” the Chinese leader told 14 other heads of state, Putin included, at the forum of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), an entity created by Beijing in 2001 that Xi I would like to see it as the embryo of an alternative bloc to the West.
Color Revolution is a term that emerged in the 2000s, when countries in the former Soviet Union experienced revolts against their Moscow-aligned governments. The color issue is because each movement had one: pink in Georgia in 2003, and orange in Ukraine in 2004, to name the most famous examples.
American and European support for the uprisings, which invariably degenerated into dysfunctional governments, prompted Moscow to denounce them as Western coups aimed at undermining the Kremlin’s influence. The term, media and easy to use in the CNNs and BBCs of the market, spread.
Thus, some of the insurrections of the so-called Arab Spring, few really popular uprisings, were also called that. In January of this year, when Russia intervened in the crisis that threatened the government of ally Kazakhstan, Chinese Chancellor Wang Yi had already mentioned the term Putinist.
Xi went further, saying he would set up a regional center in Central Asia for counter-terrorist activities, and offered to fund the training of 2,000 police officers from SCO member countries. Western analysts will not lack to see the formation of a praetorian guard against color revolutions in genesis. In the Chinese case, there is an additional message to the separatist movements in Hong Kong, supported by the US, and in Xinjiang, whose repression is denounced as genocide by Washington.
The Chinese, however, remained true to their style. He did not mention the War in Ukraine, started by Putin in February and which in practice dates back to the crucial clash between Moscow and Kiev that started in the Orange Revolution of 2004: the maintenance of Ukrainian territory as an area of ​​Russian influence separating the forces of NATO (alliance Western military) from the borders of the Kremlin.
Xi had already done that the day before, when he even heard from the Russian the consideration that Moscow understands Chinese concerns about the conflict, receiving diplomatic amenities in return and strengthening the union of countries in the Cold War 2.0 that opposes China to the US.
The Chinese face economic problems and are about to further consolidate their personalist power at the CCP Congress in October, so all they don’t need to do is provoke the West with whom they are closely connected.
His speech this Friday, however, confirms the slow formation of a bloc that Beijing intends to lead under the speech of rejection of post-Cold War US unipolarism. The invasion of Ukraine could be the initial salvo in the process, even opening the way for Chinese action against Taiwan, an island it considers a rebel province.
Putin’s failure so far to double down on his neighbour, now reinforced by the counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region, has become a problem for Xi because it raises the risk that the Western sanctions regime against Moscow will end up spilling over into Chinese business.
For now, even due to the economic interdependence with the US and Europe, this risk is minimal, but it is in place. On the other hand, China is interested in a Russia that still credibly shows its military teeth.
The SCO has eight member countries and several observers. At this summit, he approved the entry process of two of Moscow’s allies: Belarus and Iran, the latter one of the most acute anti-American regimes on the planet. But countries with more open interests are also present, such as member India, observer Turkey, and the new guest as a strategic partner, Saudi Arabia.
Also this Friday, two members of the SCO found each other strange and used the forum to reduce tension: there was an exchange of fire on a disputed border between Kyrgyzstan, a firm ally of Putin, and Tajikistan. A ceasefire, however, was arranged and appears to have spared the weakened Russian leader yet another crisis on its strategic borders.
In addition to the war, another situation involves two strategic partners of the SCO, Russian ally Armenia and Turkish protégé Azerbaijan, which continue to clash in the wake of new clashes in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, object of a war won by Baku in 2020.
The Armenian government said the dead this week had reached 200 on its side, and a mission from Putin’s “mini-NATO”, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, arrived in the region on Friday to try to monitor the interim ceasefire.
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