Unusually high tone against Washington at this year’s session of China’s National People’s Congress: Just before his third term is ratified, President Xi Jinping accuses the US that they “oppress” and “surround” his country, calls on the Communist leadership to meet the “unprecedented challenges” of the times and declares that “China must find the courage to fight.” At the same time, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang issued a warning to Washington to avoid a “conflict with disastrous consequences”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin could have uttered the same threats. The Kremlin justifies the invasion of Ukraine as a competitive response to NATO, the USA and “the West” in general, while China seems receptive to this argumentation, without however fully adopting it.

Putin (70) and Xi Jinping (69) are about the same age. Both have chosen an authoritarian, almost dictatorial model of governance. In the last ten years they met about 40 times. They never tire of repeating the “friendship” and “strategic alliance” of the two countries. They reject the post-war, rules-based order, while aspiring to thwart the “dominion” they see the West as seeking.

Interlinked economies

There are, of course, significant differences between the two countries. By GDP, China is the second largest economy in the world, with excellent export performance.
The Russian economy is ten times weaker, as it is mainly based on the extraction and export of raw materials. All attempts to modernize it have failed. Putin bet on war, but fell out in every way, politically, economically and militarily. The unity of the West, which managed to wean itself off Russia’s fossil fuels in a matter of months, is now forcing Putin to look elsewhere and primarily to China.

He has no other options, unlike Beijing, which takes advantage of the situation and secures preferential prices for the purchase of Russian oil and natural gas. The longer this dependency lasts, the better for Beijing.

Xi Jinping may threaten the Americans, but he always keeps the possibility of compromise open. And it may be that the “zero-tolerance strategy” in the face of the coronavirus pandemic is weakening the prospects for recovery, but the latest data shows that the Chinese economy is stabilizing. Xi Jingping has no reason, no interest, pursue a trade war with the US or Europe. But he is also intelligent enough not to publicly humiliate Russia.

The American economy a model?

Economic analysts estimate that in the coming years the standard of living in Russia will be significantly reduced. One of the reasons is that, after the invasion of Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of IT professionals left Russia in search of a better life. Putin may not care about his country’s economic collapse, but Xi Jinping is pursuing a completely different strategy. His goal was and remains to equal the performance of the American economy and, if possible, to surpass them one day.

A recent study by the German Foundation for Science and Policy (SWP) in Berlin recalls a visit by rising power Xi Jinping to the US in 2012. At the time, he spoke of “a new kind of relationship between the great powers of the 21st century” with the US and China to talk as equals. Russia was not even mentioned.

Meanwhile the Chinese leadership praises Moscow as Beijing’s “most important strategic partner”. At the moment, the two countries are mainly united by the rivalry with the USA, in which, however, China does not take an active role. As Chinese analyst Wang Chutong argues in the SWP Foundation report this is not going to change, “unless the US decides to provide military assistance for Taiwan independence.”