Biden administration skeptical of Xi’s intentions ahead of summit with Putin

CNN
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President Joe Biden said earlier this week that he planned to speak “soon” with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.

But even before his team began planning the call, another meeting was taking shape: the Chinese government announced that Xi planned to travel to Russia on Monday for a three-day summit with President Vladimir Putin as Xi tries to present itself as a potential peacemaker in the Ukrainian war.

In Washington, officials view Xi’s intentions with deep skepticism; China refused to condemn the war and instead claimed that Moscow was provoked into invading Ukraine. After China announced Xi’s visit to Russia, saying he was traveling ‘for the sake of peace’, the White House scrambled to pre-empt attempts to make the Xi-Putin meeting a mission of peacemaking, suggesting that any framework proposed by Beijing would be weighted towards Russia. and bad for Ukraine.

“As they begin to plan their program, we certainly want to express how concerned we would be about any proposal from (China) that is…one-sided and only reflects the Russian perspective,” spokesman John Kirby said. of the National Security Council.

He said such a Chinese proposal could include some type of ceasefire, which he said would simply provide a way for Russia to regroup before launching a retaliation.

“A ceasefire is now effectively the ratification of the Russian conquest,” he said.

The Putin-Xi summit itself came as no surprise to the White House as it was reported that such a meeting could take place for weeks. Still, there remain deep concerns that the “boundless” partnership that Xi and Putin cemented in previous meetings could deepen in face-to-face talks.

And there are growing fears that further Chinese intervention in the conflict could fundamentally change the dynamics of the battlefield – or at least prolong the war at a time when the West’s political appetite for supporting Ukraine is put to the test.

Xi remained Putin’s best antidote to US attempts to isolate Russia. Even Friday’s decision by the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Putin – intended in part to make world leaders “think twice before shaking hands with him or sitting with him at the negotiating table” – did not seem likely to dissuade him from his support.

So far, officials have said there is no indication that Beijing has made the final decision to aid Moscow’s war efforts with lethal aid. But they have considered it, according to US officials, who monitor day-to-day intelligence for indications that Xi is moving forward.

Next week’s meeting could provide a venue for such an announcement.

“It’s something we’ll be watching,” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said this week. “Obviously Russia has its own interests in trying to drag other countries into this conflict if it can, but our position is the same whether they meet or not.”

But some U.S. officials see the meeting as possible to fend off any impending deadly Chinese support for Russia, given Xi’s efforts to portray the trip as a search for peace.

The concern of US officials is not necessarily that Chinese weapons will help Russia win a decisive victory in Ukraine. Instead, the concern is that lethal aid from Beijing would bog down the war in a way that would serve Moscow.

An interminable war could also benefit China if US resources and attention are consumed in Ukraine, rather than in Asia, where Beijing has become increasingly militarily assertive. And although China has not provided deadly support to Russia so far, it has been willing to import large amounts of Russian energy, which has allowed Moscow’s tax revenue to increase over the past year. year – despite sanctions implemented by the United States and its European allies. .

It is in this context that Biden has repeatedly warned Xi against taking a Russian bias in the war, including in a phone call in March 2022 and when they met face-to-face last November in Bali, their only face-to-face since Biden took office.

Biden’s desire to keep lines of communication open with China — including through regular phone calls with Xi — is currently the administration’s primary focus in dealing with Beijing, officials say, who say that the risk of military or diplomatic miscalculation is higher when the two parties are not talking.

Yet even those efforts have been sidetracked in recent months with the cancellation of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing due to the Chinese spy balloon flying across the United States. US officials initially announced the meeting would be postponed, but more than a month later there is no new date on the schedule.

US officials also used their usual diplomatic channels to encourage a conversation between Xi and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, saying it would be helpful to hear the Ukrainian perspective directly from him. Xi has not had a single phone call with Zelensky since the start of the war in Ukraine.

“We think it’s important for China to have Ukraine’s point of view. Clearly, Russia’s motives are nefarious,” Pentagon spokesman Brig. On Friday, General Patrick Ryder told CNN. “They illegally invaded and occupied Ukraine. We hope that President Xi and the Chinese government can have the advantage of understanding what exactly the impact of their support for Russia is.

However, it’s still unclear when those conversations might take place. White House officials said there were no logistical arrangements to arrange a call between Biden and Xi. And there is no doubt that the deep personal affinity between Putin and Xi has helped to strengthen ties between their nations as they each warn of encroaching US influence.

Before the war began, the pair released a 5,000-word statement declaring that their relationship had “no limits”. Since then, China has provided diplomatic support to Russia and the United States has sanctioned a Chinese company for providing satellite images to the Russian mercenary Wagner Group.

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