The tragic war in Ukraine, according to several geopolitical analyses, highlights a historic moment of the post-Cold War era shaped by the relative loss of US power, while Russia and China strengthened. The diagnosis, however, needs to embed a paradox: the growing assertiveness of Beijing and Moscow on the global stage contrasts with advancing domestic challenges for the reigns of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
They are two sides of the same coin: economic reforms and expansion have allowed China and Russia, with more intensity in the Asian case, to expand their weight on the international map, processes accompanied by profound domestic transformations, capable of raising doubts about longevity. of the power projects installed in the Kremlin and in Zhongnanhai, seat of the Chinese government.
Such changes are evident, for example, in the advance of urbanization and the expansion of the middle classes. The predecessors of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, in the Soviet Union and in Maoist China, reigned over different social scenarios, in which heavy-handed regimes were more easily installed.
China and Russia, in the midst of the changes imposed by the condition of “emerging countries”, a label used to describe them at the beginning of the 21st century, resorted to nationalism as ideological fuel to justify new directions and to abandon faded dogmas. Pekingese and Muscovite propaganda machines began to pour out the rhetoric of their regimes’ historic missions aimed at “recovering past glories.”
It accompanies the change in the menu of ideologies, with the rescue of nationalist mottos, the resurgence of authoritarianism within the Russian and Chinese borders. As the Kremlin strangles pro-human rights organizations such as Memorial, which was ordered to shut down last December, Zhongnanhai is tightening siege on pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong and tightening controls over the internet.
In the case of Xi Jinping, the regime is haunted by the binomial “more technology, more middle class”, recognized by the government as an inevitable and effective formula for maintaining economic growth throughout the 21st century. results of a gigantic transformation, evidenced, for example, in the urbanization figures.
In the mid-1980s, in the early days of the communist leader Deng Xiaoping’s project for change, about 20% of Chinese lived in cities, a rate, in 2020, to reach 64%. In the early days of the revolution that began in 1949, the Maoist CP had more resources to implement strong mechanisms of social control.
Vladimir Putin, who has been in power for more than twenty years, is also seeing signs of challenges on the domestic horizon. For example, United Russia, the regime’s support party, won 50% of the vote last year in parliamentary elections, up from 54% in 2016.
It may seem like a small margin, but just remember the distrust with which figures released by the Kremlin are received. And, in the official accounts, a turnout of only 52% of voters, an evident demonstration of unwillingness to endorse the voting process modeled by the government.
Supported by the nationalist guide, the Russian and Chinese regimes are projecting more and more assertiveness on the international scene, but, along with the demonstrations of self-confidence, concerns about how to face domestic changes and stay in the power, in Moscow or Beijing.
