Good Morning,
I watched plenty of what was available of the Chinese Leader Xi JinPing’s visit to Moscow this week and no one knows for sure what was agreed on except a road map to deepen relations.
The Red Carpet stroll through the Kremlin with Russian President Vladimir Putin, was anything but a clear picture of what was being discussed behind closed doors, and the only thing brilliant about this meeting seemed to be the shiny Kremlin floor waxed and polished to perfection.
Russian’s love their parquet floors, and if I’m writing about that lovely Kremlin floor seen on TV, you just know the actual concrete detail on what Xi and Putin agreed on is extremely thin on detail and it’s meant to be that way.
Why? Because if China agrees to provide lethal military aid to Russia, and many suspect it may, China and the West will go to economic war. The consequences would be earth shaking.
And if behind those Kremlin doors Xi did agreed to provide weapons to prop up Russia’s dwindling ammunition supplies in Ukraine, he made sure not to announce it because he doesn’t want to endanger his vital trade with The West.
China’s trade with Europe is roughly 828 billion dollars, and another 690 billion with America. Wading into the war in Ukraine on behalf of his 190 billion Russian trade partner would be economic suicide provoking sanctions on China from Western allies.
So Xi and Putin spoke in glowing terms of their partnership staying away from the word ‘alliance’. And Putin admits discussing China’s peace plan for Ukraine.
Xi continues to pretend to be a neutral party in the Ukraine conflict, proposing dialogue and peace talks, but he has never once met Ukraine’s leader Zelensky.
Xi has met Putin 40 times now.
China has provided computer parts that may be used in Russian missiles that are slamming into civilian areas in Ukraine. And some aluminum metals that may be appearing in construction of Russian armoured vehicles. And it has transferred some drones the Russian’s are deploying in Ukraine.
Putin has announced new business from China will come to Russia to replace Western businesses that have pulled out, and a new gas pipeline will carry oil to China, the same oil that is largely sanctioned by Europe and the U.S. And they are boosting liquified natural gas exports to China.
It is no doubt a strengthening alliance, that wants to oppose America and it’s allies economically and militarily.
Putin doesn’t have many friends left, so Xi is a lifeline, especially considering only a few days before the summit, the Russian President was being named a war criminal by the International Court in the Hague.
But many will see Russia as going cap in hand to China, essentially becoming a provider of natural resources, and gaining little else in return. Thus the often repeated joke, Russia is a big gas station and little more these days.
But the China-Russia partnership has to be taken seriously because you know both are allied in creating havoc for democracies, pushing authoritarian visions with notions of dominating their so called spheres of influence whether that be Russia in the former Soviet Union, or China bent on absorbing Taiwan.
In 1957 Chinese Leader Mao visited Moscow, and declared with East wind was blowing, and East would soon prevail over the West.
It didn’t exactly go that way in the coming decades, but Xi believes China will dominate our World, and Putin is happy to tag along if he can with his own visions of restoring a Russian Empire.
Xi’s possibly shady deals with Putin are unclear. But in the coming months we will learn more about what these two autocratic leaders actually signed up to, as intelligence tracks shipments from China possibly through third parties to Russia’s war zone.
And then we will have more to report on than those lovely Kremlin parquet floors!
Dana Lewis