Putin tests ‘Nixon to China’ playbook to reassert Soviet-era clout
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Ned Temko Correspondent
A half-century ago this week, U.S. President Richard Nixon made a dramatic visit to Beijing, capitalizing on China’s political split from the Soviet Union. At a stroke, he increased U.S. leverage with Moscow. Now, Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to flip that script, moving to strengthen his political, economic, and military ties with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The aim is to place Washington, not Moscow, at the point of a geopolitical triangle, dealing simultaneously with two geopolitical foes. But will things turn out as Mr. Putin hopes?
China and Russia share common critiques of the United States: its dominance in international affairs, its imposition of a raft of sanctions, its attention to human rights records. They see it and its allies as in historical decline.
But there’s a potential hitch in Mr. Putin’s Nixon-scale vision. China is now the major global power alongside the United States, not a geographically shrunken and economically vulnerable post-Soviet Russia. True, trade has doubled, to roughly $150 billion, since Mr. Putin annexed Crimea. But China’s trade with the European Union remains some four times that, similar to its trade with the U.S. Mr. Xi also holds long-term hope of repairing relations with the West. That could limit his embrace of Mr. Putin, especially if Russia’s incursion into Ukraine escalates into full-fledged invasion.
Why We Wrote This
It looks like a ‘Nixon to China’ move in reverse – Moscow warming ties with Beijing to put Washington in the hot seat. But the power dynamics that undergirded that dramatic step 50 years ago have shifted sharply, potentially weakening long-term impact.
Vladimir Putin’s war on an independent Ukraine has begun, and in the short term he’s bracing for sanctions from an uncommonly united West. But he has a broader goal: reasserting Russia’s Soviet-era weight on the world stage. And for that, he’s been drawing on a playbook crafted in Washington, exactly half a century ago.
It was this week, in 1972, that President Richard Nixon made a dramatic visit to Beijing, capitalizing on China’s political split from the Soviet Union, then the preeminent Communist power and America’s main rival. At a stroke, he increased U.S. leverage with Moscow.
Now, even as Mr. Putin was preparing to invade Ukraine, he’s been working to flip that script by moving to strengthen his political, economic, and military ties with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Why We Wrote This
It looks like a ‘Nixon to China’ move in reverse – Moscow warming ties with Beijing to put Washington in the hot seat. But the power dynamics that undergirded that dramatic step 50 years ago have shifted sharply, potentially weakening long-term impact.
The aim: to place Washington, not Moscow, at the point of a geopolitical triangle, having to deal simultaneously with two geopolitical foes. That prospect has Washington policymakers increasingly worried.
Still, the critical open question is whether things will ultimately turn out the way Mr. Putin hopes.
Pushing through an open door
In some ways, his bid for closer ties with Beijing is a case of pushing through an open door. Both Russia and China are autocracies, opposed to what they see as U.S. dominance in international affairs. They both view the U.S. and its democratic allies as in historical decline and have sought to stoke divisions among them.
Both have denounced Western criticism of their human rights records and are bridling over a raft of economic sanctions. Both see benefits in forcing Washington to spread its diplomatic and military resources between challenges in their two distant parts of the globe.
Both also are also determined to assert control over democratic neighbors: Ukraine, in Russia’s case; the offshore island of Taiwan in China’s.
Indeed, in the run-up to Mr. Putin’s bid to muscle Ukraine back into Moscow’s orbit, he and Mr. Xi used a meeting this month to issue a statement foreseeing a “friendship without limits” and committing each leader to key policy goals of the other.
Mr. Putin signaled “opposition to any form of independence for Taiwan.” The Chinese president seconded Russia’s demand for an end to the expansion of NATO and echoed Mr. Putin’s opposition to the “color revolutions” with which formerly Soviet bloc states, including Ukraine, established democratic governments looking toward the West.
Still, how much practical difference Mr. Putin’s growing warmth with Beijing will make in his dealing with Western pushback over the move into Ukraine remains unclear. And that uncertainty reflects a major potential hitch in his Nixon-scale vision for a new Russia-China axis.
Since the Cold War years of the 1970s, there’s been a profound power shift between Moscow and Beijing. China, not a geographically shrunken and economically vulnerable post-Soviet Russia, is now the major global power alongside the United States.
And while Mr. Xi has good reason to draw closer to a fellow U.S. rival, any expanding Russia-China alliance is bound to be on China’s terms.
Even in the short term, the effects of this will bear watching.
An early test
An early test will come in China’s response to Mr. Putin’s effective pre-invasion takeover of the eastern flank of Ukraine by unilaterally recognizing breakaway enclaves there as Moscow-allied republics.
Mr. Xi has long trumpeted the importance of “territorial integrity” as a core principle – not least because it’s been central to warning off the U.S. and its allies against interfering with his determination to “reintegrate” Taiwan into mainland China.
When the Russian president last moved to claim part of Ukraine – his 2014 annexation of Crimea – Beijing withheld its support for the move.
Now, Mr. Putin will be hoping China will extend its recognition as well to his newly allied Ukrainian “people’s republics.”
He’ll also be looking to his expanding trade links with China as a counterweight against new Western sanctions, especially with this week’s announcement by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz of a freeze on approval for the new Nord Stream 2 pipeline, meant to increase the flow of Russian gas to Western Europe.
A gas pipeline from Russia’s far east began exporting to China three years ago, but at nowhere near the volume of its current exports to Europe. An additional pipeline, doubling the supply to China, won’t come on stream for at least several years.
And in seeking to expand his trade links with Beijing, Mr. Putin could still find himself subject to the very complaint he’s been leveling at Washington and NATO: that Russia has been denied its rightful “great power” respect ever since the breakup of the USSR.
Yes, China welcomes the energy and other raw material supplies Russia is keen to export. Trade between the countries has been on an upward trajectory, doubling to roughly $150 billion, since Mr. Putin’s annexation of Crimea.
But China’s total trade with the European Union remains some four times that, about the same amount it still does with the U.S.
Mr. Xi’s long-term hope of repairing the recent downturn in relations with the West could limit how enthusiastically he returns Mr. Putin’s embrace over the coming days. That’s especially true if Russia’s invasion into Ukraine escalates into a full-fledged bid to take over Ukraine and in effect bomb its elected government into submission to Moscow.
