125. ANALYSIS: Benjamin Herscovitch on China and Russia - China’s position vis-a-vis Russia’s invasion, how this position might change in 2023 & shape China’s approach to Taiwan
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Welcome to the War in Ukraine update from Kyiv podcast. I'm Jessica Gnauer, a senior lecturer in international relations at Flinders University in Australia. And I'm talking today with Benjamin Herskovich. Ben is a research fellow at the School of Regulation and Global Governance at the Australian National University. Ben focuses in his work on...

China's economic statecraft and Australia-China relations. However, in the podcast episode today, we're going to be discussing China and geoeconomics in light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. So thanks for joining me on the podcast today, Ben. It's great to be with you, Jessica. Thanks so much for having me on. We're now almost one year into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and analysts

commented throughout 2022 that China's position vis-a-vis Russia and vis-a-vis Russia's invasion would be really pivotal in terms of not only influencing the trajectory of the war itself, but also what kind of relationship we're going to see between global powers in the international system after the war has concluded. How would you characterize Russia's

China's approach to Russia during 2022? That's a great question. And in a way, it's the million, billion, trillion dollar question in all of this, what China decides to do vis-a-vis its relationship with Russia and its response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Overall, I think it's pretty fair to say that China is in the midst of trying to do a two-track approach on the issue of

simultaneously deepening and maintaining its really warm, strong relationship with Russia, which it has fostered for a whole host of strategic, economic, diplomatic, and military reasons, while also at the same time trying to minimize to some degree

the public relations fallout associated with that really close relationship over the course of Russia's invasion and ongoing occupation of Ukraine. The question, I guess, is the extent to which China has been able to effectively manage the PR fallout from its close relationship with Russia. And I think it's a bit of a mixed bag on that front. Clearly, China's closeness with Russia has

sent the image of China in a tailspin in places like Washington and Canberra and London. And it's been a significant drag on people's perceptions of China as an actor on the world stage. Having said that, though, it is fair to say, I think also, that China's approach to Russia over the course of the war in Ukraine

has not been dramatically different from the approaches of a range of other significant actors in the international arena. Say, for example, India in particular, an obvious case where because India is a liberal democracy and in the parlance of policy wonks in Canberra or Washington would be seen to be

broadly aligned with the United States or Australia in terms of its strategic objectives and its values has actually engaged really fulsomely with Russia over the course of the invasion continuing to trade with Russia continuing to engage diplomatically with Russia and it speaks to the fact that in a way the extent of the effort to isolate Russia on behalf of North American countries European countries and a smattering of countries in East Asia like

Japan and Australia is actually not representative of the broader global view of Russia and its invasion of Ukraine. And on the front of sanctions in particular, it's clear that China is trying to still engage in a really broad, full way with Russia economically and trade.

Trade with Russia has gone through the roof over the course of 2022 in the wake of the invasion. But Chinese companies, by and large, are apparently seeking to comply with the international sanctions regime. Although there was a really interesting article in The Wall Street Journal just last week looking at the way in which a whole host of Chinese companies in the high tech space may actually be flouting those sanctions and still be trading with Russia.

Russian companies and effectively, by extension, providing significant assistance to Russia's war effort in Ukraine. So it's a bit of a mixed bag in terms of how China has approached it. But I think it's motivated by this overarching view that the war in Ukraine and Russia's military missteps there are a net negative for China in terms of its international reputation by virtue of China's close relationship with Russia, but still

China sees Russia as a really critical pole of power in a multipolar world order, which is something that China values greatly and seeks to work towards. China wants Russia to continue to prosper and succeed, and probably also wants it to succeed in the war in Ukraine, bring that to a relatively speedy conclusion, though it has not been able to do so, to avoid the PR fallout and solidify the

the power of alternative poles of power in the international system. Yeah. And I mean, we know that something that's really important to President Xi Jinping is the economic domestic stability and growth for China. So I can only imagine that Xi Jinping is viewing Russia's invasion of Ukraine through that lens. You know, what will be the impact on China's domestic economy, if any?

So do you think in that sense that Russia's invasion poses more economic opportunities for China or economic challenges? It's a big macro question and hard to give a pithy response. I think...

On balance, it is probably a net economic benefit for China. And maybe the same would be true for a range of developing countries in Africa or in South Asia or Southeast Asia, where in a scenario such as the one that we're in, where Russia is on the nose diplomatically in Europe,

Europe and North America and elsewhere and is being economically isolated by a whole host of massive global economies in Europe and North America, that means Russia needs to look elsewhere for economic opportunities. And a big part of where Russia looks for economic opportunities is a place like China, is a place like India, is a place like Vietnam.

There's a whole host of pieces of press reporting highlighting the fact that Russian exports have boomed to places like Vietnam, to places like Turkey, to places like India and China over the course of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. So in terms of being able to import relatively cheap Russian gas or Russian oil or Russian fertilizer, the war in Ukraine perversely is

probably an economic net benefit for a whole host of countries, including China and big international players like India. Having said that, of course, the invasion of Ukraine and the economic aftershocks have produced spikes in food prices and a huge amount of stress on the global economy and supply chains and the like. And that is turbulence that is

challenging and hard to navigate for any country in the world, including China. But I think given the prospect of really massively ramping up the trading relationship with Russia and finding a new and quite desperate market for Chinese imports into Russia, it's probably ultimately a net positive for China.

And I guess more specifically also, we've seen China focusing in recent years, for almost a decade now since 2013, on the Belt and Road Initiative, which is supposed to be this sort of big strategic geopolitical economic initiative for China. And that was planned, as I understand it, to run through Russia and Belarus. Is Russia's invasion of Ukraine going to threaten China?

that really important initiative for Xi Jinping. There's no doubt that there would be pieces of infrastructure and forms of trade that China might hope to build or maintain or engage in via that corridor through Eastern Europe that would be really severely disrupted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing conflict there. That is probably a marginal net negative for Beijing.

But it is worth pointing out that those corridors through Eastern Europe and Russia, they're significant for the Belt and Road, but the Belt and Road was also massively focused on a country like Pakistan, on various different parts of Southeast Asia, on maritime routes through the Indian Ocean, through East Africa and Eastern Europe and Southeastern Europe as well, Middle East into Western Europe.

There is some disruption, presumably, potential risk to infrastructure, presumably, but that's probably, when it comes to the overall scope of the Belt and Road, not going to pose a really significant long-term strategic challenge for that agenda. Another aspect to this is that even though the Belt and Road still remains a really significant signature part of Xi Jinping's foreign policy, and it's still referenced in official statements and speeches and the like,

I think it probably is also fair to say that we have seen a kind of incremental downgrading of the importance of BRI in the canon of China's foreign policy lexicon, let's say. It's still there. It's associated with his two first terms in particular. But as China is facing a whole host of financial and economic headwinds, the impulse to speed

spread around a huge amount of capital externally in big infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia or South Asia or Eastern Europe is going downgraded quite significantly. So from China's point of view, I think the relative importance of BRI is being incrementally downgraded. And then the final thing to say, and this is a bit more of a speculative point, but I nevertheless think is relevant, that from the point of view of

I don't know, policy banks in Beijing or corporate sector actors in Beijing. Of course, now Eastern Europe, Eastern Ukraine in particular, Belarus, parts of Russia are probably really problematic as investment destinations or potential locations for infrastructure projects.

But at a certain point in time, the war will conclude. And once this war has concluded, there will have been a huge amount of infrastructure devastation, a huge amount of destruction of what is critical infrastructure, built environment, ICT infrastructure.

roads, ports, etc. And that will require capital and that will require construction know-how. And it's entirely possible that if you're a construction company in China or a policy bank in China, you'd be thinking that the reconstruction phase of this conflict will actually present opportunities.

We saw that to some degree in the wake of the civil war in Syria that rolled on for many, many years, that China has played a role in the reconstruction of Syria. And so when you have mass destruction of infrastructure and the built environment, that presents opportunities long term. That's clearly a very cynical view to take, but it would nevertheless be a factor, I imagine.

And going into the second year of Russia's full-scale invasion, what stance do you think that China is going to take this year towards its relations with Russia?

Do you think that we're going to see more of the same, this kind of insistence that China is taking more or less a neutral stance? Or do you think we might see China sort of growing more boldly close to Russia or alternately trying to distance itself further from Russia if, you know, the war really does occur?

drag on as it has been. And we're seeing really kind of military failures for Russia on the battlefront as well. Yeah, this is so important and so fascinating. And I think the caveat I offer up front, which might seem unnecessary in this context, but I still think is important, is that

And this is impressionistic, but it seems as if Xi Jinping himself, the Chinese leader, is very much invested in his personal relationship with Vladimir Putin and the broader bilateral relationship between China and Russia. Now, as everyone knows, it is impossible to get into the head of a world leader. And so we don't have this authentic readout of what Xi Jinping himself actually thinks. But it seems like he is very invested. And of course, as we were discussing earlier,

China understands that there are potentially very serious long-term PR risks associated with the relationship with Russia. It is a net negative in terms of China's international reputation. It's a drag on China's diplomatic relations with a whole host of primarily liberal democracies in Western Europe, North America, and East Asia. But that's a significant factor for China, especially in the current context of

China seeming to want to recalibrate its relationships to a certain extent with a range of foreign countries. And we've seen a bit of a tactical shift in China's foreign policy towards a bit more of a warmer foreign policy in recent months towards Australia, towards the United States, towards Western European countries. So the deep relationship with Russia is counterproductive to that. But I still think this year, we're likely to see a continuation of Beijing's positive engagement with Moscow, despite all of those PR costs.

and despite the long-term strategic risks for China in its relations with a whole host of countries. And I think that's driven by a few different things. On the one hand, going back to an earlier point, deepening that relationship with Russia and supporting Russia is critical to China's overall grand strategy in terms of creating a more multipolar world where the rules and norms of international behavior and international institutions aren't dominated by

a group of countries in Western Europe and North America and are smattering them in East Asia. It doesn't want an international system and a world order dominated by liberal democracies, which on some level in Beijing's eyes have priorities that are counterproductive to China's interests.

So Russia's ongoing power, Russia's ongoing influence and prestige is beneficial for China long term, which counts pretty strongly in favor of maintaining a relatively deep positive relationship with Russia. Another big aspect of this is that it is striking that China is engaged in a really fulsome way with Russia. We've had multiple meetings over the course of 2022 between President Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, despite all the international opprobrium being directed at

Putin. And now we have this news, and I don't know where we are right now in this, but we have this news that Xi Jinping is reportedly going to be visiting Russia to have a bilateral meeting with Putin, which is a pretty bold, dramatic statement in the context of all of this hostility towards Russia and opposition to its invasion of Ukraine. And then on top of that, Xi Jinping has not had any meetings with Zelensky, Ukraine's leader. And that just paints this really clear picture of just

Despite all of the blowback that China is receiving, it is still so committed to that political and diplomatic relationship with Russia. And I don't see that going anywhere. The overarching strategic rationale for that deep relationship with Russia continues in 2023, even though the war is grinding on, even though Russia's reputation continues to tank ever.

Two final points on this. I think from the point of view of managing China's international image abroad and its foreign policy more broadly, one key factor in all this would be that Russia's reputation is creating a negative splashback effect for China. But that negative effect is really intense in a place like

Australia or the United States or countries in Western Europe, but it probably doesn't cut through that much in large parts of the developing world, in Latin America, in Africa, in other parts of Asia. Some of those countries have voted to condemn Russia in the UN, but we have, for example, news in recent weeks of this trilateral naval exercise between South Africa, Russia, and China, and

whole host of statements from South African government officials indicating their comfort with a warm, deep, positive relationship with Russia. And then we have a country like India still deeply engaging with Russia. And so I think China is probably relatively confident that it can derive all these benefits from its relationship with Russia and not necessarily lose its

broadly positive image in a huge portion of the developing world where countries are not enthusiastic about Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, but are broadly happy to live with it, or at the very least, don't want to encounter diplomatic and economic costs for themselves by opposing Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And then there's obviously, I think also, the possibility of some kind of war fatigue aspect to this that

The initial shock for political leaders and governments in Europe and North America and Australia of Russia invading Ukraine in this outward horrific act of violent hostility and China

standing by and remaining neutral. The shock of that has faded to a certain extent. And there is probably a bit of a kind of creeping acceptance that China's relationship, its deep relationship with Russia will be maintained, despite Russia's aggression, despite

atrocities, despite all the heinous things being done to Ukraine by Russia. And that means that maybe increasingly China can afford to live with that fallout and won't see real significant tangible costs associated with its maintained relationship with Russia. And as we were saying earlier, maybe actually thinks that it will continue to reap rewards

relative economic benefits associated with that relationship and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And so it can continue on with this path of engagement and only suffering a certain amount of negative reputational damage in capitals in Western Europe and North America and a few in East Asia. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I can see how China is trying to navigate that line. And I guess, you know, a line that Xi Jinping hasn't crossed is openly providing military weapons and aid to Russia, which is something that both Iran and North Korea have done and have sort of suffered some kind of costs as a result. Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. So we still have this really close military

mil-mil relationship between China and Russia. And we've had examples of Chinese troops heading over to Russia for exercises. And we've had joint patrols above the waters of China around Japan between the Russian Air Force and the Chinese Air Force. And we've had joint naval exercises, I believe, including that mini lateral one with South Africa coming up. So still a really strong flourishing military to military relationship. But I think you're absolutely right that there would be a really strong case in

Beijing's mind for not crossing that threshold of outwardly and clearly providing arms and big pieces of equipment, much less huge military platforms to Russia. I don't think China would ever consider that. And I think the reason for that is that

it's one thing to suffer a certain amount of reputational costs associated with maintaining a close economic and diplomatic and strategic relationship with Russia. It's quite another thing to feel potentially the full force of US and European sanctions as a result of providing all of this direct military aid to Russia. And

And an element of that is that, of course, Western European countries are so deeply invested in the conflict in Ukraine and opposed to Russia's invasion because of proximity and because of NATO.

China is in the midst of trying to maintain broadly positive momentum in its relations with Europe. And it still wants to, to a certain extent, separate Europe from the United States and keep Europe as a bit of an independent polar power in its rivalry with the United States. And so in that regard, that would also strongly count in favor of not crossing that threshold of the provision of that kind of direct overt military assistance. And I think maybe another consideration for China in this is that Beijing would understand that

Moscow is up against the wall here and is desperate for friends and desperate for economic partners and desperate for military equipment and desperate for technology. That means that, of course, Moscow would love for Beijing to jump in right behind and say, you can have all of this advanced technology, you can have all these components in these sensitive areas.

But Moscow also knows that Beijing is facing all of these really serious strategic headwinds of its own. And it also knows that it could well be worse for Moscow. So Beijing could decide to pull back even further and provide less of the high level diplomatic support for Russia, less of the diplomatic engagement, less of the legitimizing force that China has played, less of the economic engagement in terms of un-

controversial trade. And so I think the calculus from Beijing's point of view is that Moscow probably knows that even without limited level of support, they're getting a really good deal from us. And Moscow has to be grateful with what they're getting from us. And they won't necessarily expect to get anything more given the circumstances.

And finally, I want to ask you about another really important factor when we're talking about how China might be viewing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and that is Taiwan. Since Russia's full-scale invasion, commentators have also been thinking about whether China or Xi Jinping himself will take lessons from this.

regarding ambitions to reunite Taiwan with the Chinese mainland. So how do you think that Xi Jinping might be looking at Russia's invasion of Ukraine in that regard?

I think from the point of view of military tactics and operations and broader statecraft, Beijing would be looking at this invasion and seeking to learn lessons of what not to do, given the extent to which

It would seem as if Russia has bungled so many aspects of this and has not achieved over and over again its seemingly stated objectives in Ukraine. So from the point of view of the senior Chinese Communist Party leadership, Russia is providing this great example of what not to do, essentially.

And I think part of that is the operational side of this equation and the specific question of how to go about actually taking land and seizing territory and advancing your military objectives. But part of it is also the information environment and the narrative, which has been in the international media, at least, Russia has seemingly managed very poorly in comparison to the really savvy management of the information environment by the Ukrainian side. Having said all of that,

I think the lessons for China from Russia's so far failed invasion of Ukraine are probably not that great simply because, and this is the point which I don't think is made often enough,

Beijing's preferred approach to a resolution of its dispute with Taiwan on its terms doesn't actually involve a full-scale military invasion of the island of Taiwan. Taiwan, in all likelihood for Beijing, would be better consumed by China via non-military means.

Beijing hopes to achieve its objective without having to take on the potentially existential risks associated with launching an amphibious invasion across the Taiwan Strait. It would prefer to isolate Taiwan politically, isolate Taiwan diplomatically, impose trade restrictions on Taiwan, squeeze Taiwan's economy,

shape public opinion in Taiwan, shape public opinion in Washington and Canberra and elsewhere in the world about Taiwan so that it can effectively make its claim to Taiwan broadly accepted and make its seizure of Taiwan a fait accompli.

And launching a full-scale military invasion is the diametric opposite of that in terms of how you achieve that objective. It involves so much more military risk, so much more political risk, so much more economic risk for China. So China is not trying to go down this route in all likelihood. Having said that, we've seen reporting recently about...

comments from the director of the CIA talking about them having really solid intelligence about Xi Jinping ordering his troops to be ready to launch an invasion of Taiwan by 2027. Now, the CIA director was very clear in saying that doesn't mean they're going to do that by 2027. It's not a timeline for invasion. It's to say they want readiness for that purpose.

Now that sounds really terrifying and it might make you think invasion is imminent in the next few years, but China has had for some time 2027 as a marker of its military modernization.

David Brophy: The Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army have long articulated these goals that they have for achieving a certain level of military modernization, a certain level of military power on the world stage. David Brophy: And 2027 was long one of those markers and being able to successfully respond to any contingency in the Taiwan Strait, including US military activities, has long been the goal of Chinese military planning.

that doesn't mean they're actually going to do it. They'd still prefer, I think, though it's a contentious assessment, but I still think they'd prefer to do it via non-military means, the diplomatic route, the trade route, the information route. And the one thing that I think further counts in favor of this is the Ukraine example not being particularly instructive for China and China not seeking to in any way replicate Ukraine in Taiwan is that the geography of the circumstances is just so fundamentally different.

The proposition of invading a country with which you share a land border and where the geography is not particularly challenging to traverse is so radically different from the point of view of launching an amphibious invasion across a significant strait of water and seeking to take and hold an island which is incredibly mountainous and rugged in large part. So I think the military planners in Beijing and the senior political leadership in Beijing would be saying,

we want to think about this in terms of mistakes that might have been made that we wouldn't want to replicate but in any case we're not going to go down this route in all likelihood of a military invasion and also if we did it's a totally different proposition owing to the geography of the region and also owing to that big factor of the united states and its military the united states and the broader liberal democratic world despite now having a really strong position on ukraine and providing arms and military platforms and imposing really

really quite biting sanctions, was really slow off the mark in responding to the Ukraine crisis. In 2014, when Russia started carving off territory, the response was pretty pitiful in terms of dissuading Russia from doing more. And then in the early stages of 2022, when it looked like invasion was imminent, the messaging from Washington was really mixed.

David Brophy: Biden was flooding points about how deep the financial sanctions would be, how deep the economic cutoff would be. And so the Americans and the Europeans and the Australians also didn't provide really strong deterrent signals to Russia in the lead up to that invasion of Ukraine.

In the case of Taiwan, I think policy planners in Beijing would be rightly expecting the United States to be much more forward-leaning and much more aggressive in signaling deterrence and in being willing to take on military strategic risk to come to Taiwan's defense.

And part of that is just that long-term policy for the United States of strategic ambiguity where you don't explicitly say we'll come to Taiwan's defense, but you also don't deny that you might do that. And that leaves policy planners in Beijing thinking we have to really consider our options here because it's very possible that we'll be up against the US 7th Fleet if we try and launch an amphibious invasion of Taiwan. And then there's also the changing politics of China in Washington, D.C. right now where views on a bipartisan basis are

are really gloomy and getting gloomier by the day. And Balloon Gate just further cements that trend that policymakers in Washington are so hostile to China. And if China was making moves around Taiwan in a military sense, the

political rancor in DC and the calls for a hard firm US response would be, I think, deafening. And so Beijing would recognize based on that as well, I think that there's a really strong case for not acting vis-a-vis Taiwan in the way that Putin has acted vis-a-vis Ukraine, because it would just be so

existentially dangerous for China, given US determination on Taiwan, in part because the United States perhaps rightly is of the view that if China is able to take Taiwan by force, that is maybe the end of US credibility in East Asia. It might be the unraveling of the alliance system in East Asia. It might be the nuclearization of Japan in terms of nuclear weapons. And it might be a much more independent and terrified defense posture for Australia in

And so the United States sees this as a line in the sand that is not just liable to be washed away by a wave, but which is firm and red and will not be crossed. And so I don't think Beijing is looking to Russia and Ukraine and thinking here is a playbook that we might seek to replicate. Yeah, that makes sense. And in some ways, I feel like that playbook

about using a strategic approach that is not a full-scale military invasion is almost reinforced by the way in which Russia has approached Ukraine in the sense that when Russia was taking a more, we could say, sort of hybrid approach

post-2014, where yes, there were territorial incursions, but Russia still had some kind of plausible deniability. They annexed Crimea. There were some incursions into the Ukrainian mainland, but Russia still kind of maintained that they weren't specifically invading Ukraine. And the response from the West was quite weak.

Whereas when there was that very clear full-scale military invasion on the 24th of February, 2022, we saw quite a different and much stronger response. So I could almost see China taking a lesson from that, the potential response from an actor like the United States, if there was a very strong

clear, definitive, full-scale military invasion of Taiwan. Yeah, look, I think that's a really, really good point. I think that's the right way to frame it, that Russia's efforts to carve off Ukrainian territory were really, really effective in the 2014 and onwards period where you had this proxy war in the east of Ukraine and you were able to seize Crimea and there was a lot of criticism from Western European capitals and a range of other capitals. And

some limited sanctions, but it was broadly speaking business as usual. And I think that is much more likely to be the playbook for China in Taiwan. And it's almost confirmation of that, that when you cross over a certain threshold of aggressiveness, you do prompt more unified, much more serious, much more determined response from China.

David Brophy: key adversaries and so there's a really strong case for keeping your conflict and keeping your aggression below that threshold and. David Brophy: Incrementally achieving your objectives of having more PLA flights around Taiwan convincing more countries to cut off their diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

scaring a country like Australia or a country like Japan from engaging with Taiwan by inviting them into the CPTPP trade agreement, by scaring other countries from sending their parliamentarians to Taiwan, by imposing economic sanctions on Taiwan and the like. That's the kind of approach which

is unlikely to prompt a really serious response, but which will still incrementally get you where you want to go. And so, yeah, in that sense, maybe, again, it's an example of lessons of what not to do. And the Putin playbook, so to speak, prior to the full-scale invasion, is much more akin to actually what China would like to do, because that was, broadly speaking, relatively successful. Mm-hmm.

Thanks, Ben. I appreciate you being on the podcast and I really feel that China's position is going to be really important and definitely something to watch as we go forward in 2023. Thanks for joining me today. Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening and thanks to Gonca Varol for our theme music.