The United States is urging China not to help Russia out in the Ukraine crisis amid growing apprehension in Washington over whether Beijing and New Delhi will bail out Moscow from a debacle the west is seeking to impose on it.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi in Rome on Monday to convey Washington’s concerns over possible military and financial aid to Russia after US officials claimed over the weekend that Moscow was seeking military supplies and economic assistance from China on finding itself in a quagmire in Ukraine. China rubbished the reports calling it disinformation.
India has not figured publicly in the US concerns about countries coming to Russia’s help, but reports that New Delhi is considering buying Russian crude and other commodities at discounted prices with payment via a rupee-rouble transaction animated discourse in Washington, where US partisans see a Moscow-Beijing-New Delhi partnership emerging, despite tensions between China and India and healthy ties between US and India.
While the US seeks to put pressure on China not to bail out Russia, Washington’s energy-dependent Nato partners have it easier, with US “understanding.” They continue to buy Russian gas and oil, virtually underwriting Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine even as they condemn it.
Both China and India have refused to condemn outright Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with the only common thread between them being their disquiet over Nato’s overreach that Moscow found provocative. But while China and Russia have developed close ties in recent years with a wary eye on US, India has strived for good ties with both Washington and Moscow, in part due its tensions with China.
Consequently, while US demands from China are strident and public, its pressure on India is more muted, with expressions of understanding New Delhi’s long-standing military supplies dependency on Russia. US officials and analysts are warning that should China come to Russia’s aid, then it will also face global isolation and economic penalties.
In fact, US officials have tried to drive a wedge between Moscow and Beijing and lure China out of a Russian grasp by by suggesting that China may not have understood the full extent of Moscow’s plans (to invade Ukraine) because, the words of NSA Jake Sullivan, “it’s very possible Putin lied to them the way he lied to Europeans and others” (that he had no plans to invade Ukraine.
But the US commentariat is skeptical of this line of argument with some analysts maintaining that China greenlighted the Russian invasion, in part to assess how its own putative assault in Taiwan would be received.
“Putin went to Beijing as the supplicant and got China’s tacit support for his war, at the price of mortgaging Russia’s future to China. Xi is, in essence, a co-conspirator. We have to call him out for it, not pretend he’s a neutral bystander,” CNN political analyst John Rogin asserted in arguments that found wide traction in the US.
“Although the Ukraine-Taiwan analogy is imperfect, there’s little doubt Xi is eyeing the result of the Ukraine war while weighing whether the West has the will to defend Taiwan. And if China does attack the island democracy, there’s little doubt Putin will reciprocate Xi’s current friendship,” Rogin wrote.