Opinion | Why is the US provoking China if it needs Beijing to help end the Ukraine war?

Name: Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin speak in person for first time since Russia invaded Ukraine
Uploaded: 2022-09-23T03:30:47.000Z
Duration: 1 min 54 s
Description: Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin speak in person for first time since Russia invaded Ukraine

It is peculiar how Washington expects help from China on Ukraine while maintaining a campaign of hectoring and humiliation, including on China’s refusal to condemn Russia, and on Taiwan

Much as Nixon’s visit to Beijing reshaped the US-China relationship, peaceful means can be found to end both cross-strait tensions and the Ukraine conflict

Reading Time:3 minutes

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Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Samarkand on September 16. Photo: AFP

Dong Lei

Published: 11:30am, 23 Sep 2022

To those wishing to see a rapid conclusion to the war in Ukraine, including many in China, the West’s approach seems rather peculiar. In the wake of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in Uzbekistan, during which Russian President Vladimir Putin noted China’s “questions and concerns”, Western coverage seemed more concerned with driving a wedge between China and Russia than ending the war on mutually agreeable terms.

This follows a US pressure campaign on China’s refusal to condemn Russia, which amounted to a series of ham-fisted threats compounded by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit.

In Western coverage, Putin’s comment overshadowed all other developments around the SCO conference, which was Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first foreign trip since the pandemic began, including the signing of a Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan ceasefire that may have prevented a war in Central Asia and an offer of private diplomacy from Pope Francis to Xi.

In Russia, Xi and Putin’s remarks at the SCO were cited as evidence that Moscow retained Beijing’s support. Chinese state media, meanwhile, emphasised how the SCO meeting illustrated China’s role as a responsible international stakeholder – a position the West seems to demand that Beijing play, while simultaneously preventing it from doing so.

It is understandable, if tiresome, that in election years, American politicians and officials compete to appear “tough on China”. Likewise, in peaceful and troubled times alike, it is established US foreign policy that it should be closer to Russia and China separately than the two are to each other.

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Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin speak in person for first time since Russia invaded Ukraine

Through this dark lens, the Sino-Russian partnership is seen as threatening. But it is less comprehensible how Washington expects to obtain help from China on the Ukraine matter while maintaining its hostile and provocative posture.

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