Eurasia Press & News
China has a pivotal decision to make soon. Will it continue to back the continentalist Putin? Or will Xi Jinping take advantage of Russia’s sudden weakness to reclaim China’s “lost territories,” thereby deescalating rising maritime tensions with the Anglo-American-led sea powers?
It is often overlooked that during the Cold War China was the biggest prize for the West, tying up as it did a quarter of the Soviet armed forces. To defeat the USSR, the U.S. and UK even helped build the modern Chinese Navy. This created new threats to the West, however, including encouraging the emergence of an imperialist China intent on satisfying its historical ambitions to dominate Southeast Asia.
Interestingly, on 10 April 1974, Deng Xiaoping foresaw this possible danger when he told a special session of the United Nations General Assembly: “If one day China should change her colour and turn into a Superpower, if she too should play the tyrant in the world, and everywhere subject others to her bullying, aggression and exploitation, the peoples of the world should identify her as social-imperialist, expose it and work together with the Chinese people to overthrow it.”1
A half-century later, America and its sea power allies are even now facing just such a resurgent China. But China is torn by competing land and sea interests. Among these, its historical tensions with Russia are the most critical. The West took full advantage of these tensions to win the first Cold War.
Competition over winning China was at the heart of the Cold War. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower used the Nationalist blockade, the Taiwan Patrol Force, the strategic embargo, and a China “differential”—maximizing transportation costs of Chinese imported goods via the Trans-Siberian Railway—to push Russia and China closer together and thus create a split. It was then President Johnson’s strategy to use the Vietnam War to break apart the Sino-Soviet alliance completely, which resulted in war between Russia and China on 2 March 1969.
After President Nixon “flipped” China in 1972 and President Carter and Deng Xiaoping allied more closely by opening full diplomatic relations on 1 January 1979, the U.S. government used high-technology dual-use transfers to help build up a strong China, both economically and militarily. This technology transfer strategy put additional pressure on an already overextended Soviet military. As James Lilly noted in 1981, China tied up “25% of Soviet armed forces.”2
With American technical assistance, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) was able to make enormous strides during the 1980s. But after the 4 June 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, Beijing had no choice but to transition away from buying Western military equipment to purchasing Soviet-era military technology. In 1992, China bought the Varyag aircraft carrier from the newly independent Ukraine; renamed Liaoning, it became the first of what would become a small fleet of Chinese aircraft carriers.
But as the Russian-Ukrainian War has shown, the Soviet-era military technology that China so eagerly purchased is far inferior to those Western high-tech exports. Furthermore, a new era of cheap anti-ship missiles could soon make China’s 400-ship surface fleet obsolete.
China has long been considered to be one of the world’s greatest continental powers. The Great Wall is often cited as proof of China’s traditional focus on land power. Chinese warfare was also mainly land warfare; Sun Tzu’s Art of War discussed how river currents could impact military strategy, but there was no mention of warfare on oceans.
Throughout China’s long history, previous attempts to become a sea power all failed. During 1405–1435, Ming China ruled as the supreme sea power over Asia. Ming Treasure Fleets reached as far as East Africa. But in 1449, the Ming suffered a disastrous land defeat at the hands of their erstwhile enemies, the Mongols. This forced a reallocation of military resources away from the sea to the land.
In a similar manner to the early Ming, China’s shift from being a land power to a rising sea power could well be short-lived. In response to Beijing’s aggression, many of China’s maritime neighbors are increasing cooperation with Japan, India, Australia, and the United States—the so-called “Quad”—to act as a potent counterweight to Beijing. Plus, with the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan and possible knock-on effects of Western sanctions against Russia throughout Central Asia, military pressure on China’s western borders might soon increase, which could then force Beijing to shift away from the sea and back to the land.
The world’s attention is currently focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but on the horizon it is still China that looms as potentially the most important, as well as perhaps the most dangerous, rising power. But China is facing a monumental decision: should it continue to help Russia or take advantage of Russia’s unexpected weakness?
If Xi Jinping backs Putin fully, Western sanctions, tariffs, and even a commercial blockade might be in China’s near-term future. This could derail Beijing’s hope of becoming perhaps the most important member of the twenty-first century global economy. It could also disrupt critical oil and food supplies, both of which China is now dependent on for its sheer survival.
Furthermore, Beijing leaders say they want to retake Taiwan, but China’s “territorial integrity” claim is a lie, as Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te has now pointed out by daring Xi Jinping to take back Russian lands lost by China during the 19th century. Lai recently stated: “If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t [the PRC] take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun?”
Putin desperately needs trade with China to fight the war in Ukraine, so this could be Beijing’s last best chance to reclaim China’s “lost territories” in Outer Mongolia, Tannu Tuva, Central Asia, and especially Russia’s Far Eastern province in Siberia. Just last year, PRC maps of the Russian far east called Vladivostok and Khabarovsk by their Chinese names, which are “Haishenwai” (海參崴) and “Boli” (玻璃). This suggests territorial revanchism is still alive and well among certain groups in China.
Xi Jinping must decide whether to back Putin fully or to become more deeply integrated into a maritime global order based on multinational organizations upholding international legal norms. Russia and China have never had a sustainable relationship. Their cooperation has always been opportunistic, and therefore temporary. China’s economic and strategic interests lie with the West as they did under Deng Xiaoping, not hooking its wagon to a failing Russia as Mao Zedong did, only to end up going to war when the thieve’s bargain very predictably unraveled.
