After Xi-Putin summit, Moscow strikes Ukraine - Signal GZero newsletter

After Xi-Putin summit, Moscow strikes Ukraine 

Signal GZero newsletter, March 22. 2023

Over the past few days, Vladimir Putin pulled out all the stops to entertain his "good old friend" Xi Jinping in Moscow, during what was perhaps the most geopolitically significant bilateral summit of the year so far. 

Seven-course dinner — check. Insanely long red carpet at the Kremlin — check. Putin doing Xi the rare courtesy of showing up on time — check.

But beyond the pomp, ничего особенного (nothing much). The summit ended with a joint press conference featuring boilerplate statements about Sino-Russian cooperation. There was no mention of China potentially supplying arms to Russia, and no call for a ceasefire in Ukraine, although Putin did say that Xi's peace plancould be a first step toward a negotiated settlement “once the West and Kyiv are ready for it." 

But then right after Xi's visit on Wednesday, the Kremlin launched fresh drone and missile strikes on Ukrainian cities, killing at least four people in a residential area outside Kyiv. 

While President Volodymyr Zelensky has so far tried to remain open to Beijing's intervention, he tweeted that "every time someone tries to hear the word 'peace' in Moscow, another order is given there for such criminal strikes."

Is Putin feeling emboldened? From Putin's perspective, a visit from Xi, who’s been something of a homebody himself since the pandemic, lets Putin show that although the US and its allies have blackballed him, he is still far from isolated globally – and that the Russia-China friendship “without limits” is an axis of power Washington has to reckon with.

We're watching to see how — or if — Beijing responds to the latest onslaught that comes on the heels of Xi's whirlwind diplomacy. 

Kishida in Kyiv

All things considered, it’s not surprising that Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida went to Ukraine to visit President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday. Kishida was the only leader of a G7 nation that hadn’t yet made the trip, and Japan is chairing the group’s summit in Hiroshima in May. But it is striking when he chose to visit and where he traveled while there. 

Arriving in Kyiv on a day when Chinese President Xi Jinping was visiting Vladimir Putin in Moscow was striking. Kishida also visited a mass grave in the town of Bucha to pay respects to the Ukrainian victims of alleged Russian war crimes, offering a none-too-subtle comment on Putin’s recent indictment by the International Criminal Court. 

Japan’s foreign ministry said the trip underscored Kishida’s "absolute rejection of Russia's one-sided change to the status quo by invasion and force.” It also follows last week's dramatic breakthrough in Japan’s relations with South Korea, another move signaling that, while Japan must continue to carefully balance its relations with China, Kishida will be more assertive and outspoken on foreign policy than most of Japan’s recent prime ministers.

Embates diplomáticos, or else... China-EUA e a guerra da Ucrânia - Signal GZero newsletter

 Signal GZero newsletter, March 15, 2023

Biden to Xi: We should talk…when you’re ready

President Biden speaks with Chinese President Xi Jinping virtually in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on Nov. 15, 2021. Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)

Don’t call it a reset. But the White House made clear Monday that President Biden wants to talk with Chinese President Xi Jinping sooner rather than later, reviving efforts to shore up lines of communication and defuse some tensions in The World’s Most Important Bilateral Relationship (™). “I can’t give you a date because there’s no date set,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said. “But President Biden has indicated his willingness to have a telephone conversation with President Xi once they’re back and in stride coming off the National People’s Congress.” That annual legislative convention, which wrapped up Monday, formally gave Xi an unprecedented third presidential term. He has also filled senior government posts with loyalists who will strengthen his hand as he grapples with an economy that appears to be faltering. My colleague Ellen Nakashima reported “a U.S. official said that Sullivan was ‘trying to signal’ willingness to reengage. ‘I know the president wants to be clear that we want to keep the lines of communication open.'” “The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the matter’s sensitivity, said it is likely a conversation between the two leaders will eventually take place. But, the official cautioned, ‘it takes two to have a call.’”

China hasn’t yet agreed, in other words.

BALLOON TENSIONS

A Biden-Xi call would be the most visible effort yet to overcome the latest flare-up of tensions, sparked in late January by a Chinese spy balloon that lazily hovered over sensitive U.S. military sites across several states before a U.S. fighter jet took it down off the South Carolina coast. Waterballoon (The Daily 202 isn’t going to mindlessly tack on the usual scandal suffix “-gate” when this is available) led Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a visit to China at the last minute.

And last week, Xi delivered his sharpest, most direct public criticisms of the United States, saying America and its Western allies “have implemented all-round containment, encirclement and suppression against us.” On Monday, he vowed to build his military into “a great wall of steel” to protect Chinese economic and security interests.

“We believe there is competition, and we welcome that competition,” Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to California. Biden was headed there to celebrate a deal to equip Australia’s navy with nuclear-powered submarines, a response to Chinese ambitions.

“But there is no need for conflict, there is no need for confrontation, there is no need for a new Cold War,” Sullivan said. “And we will look to work with China in areas where it’s in our mutual interests and the wider world’s interest to do so.”

Sullivan also played down bipartisan anger in Waterballoon’s aftermath, saying it “has come from voices, of course, not within the U.S. administration” and underlining “President Biden sets the terms of this relationship, and he sets the tone for this relationship for the U.S. government.”

CHINESE DIPLOMACY

If it happens, the call will come after two interesting developments in China’s international diplomatic outreach.

China helped broker an agreement last week between regional archrivals Saudi Arabia and Iran to reestablish diplomatic relations. The deal, which Xi appears to have personally worked for, was seen as a major success for Beijing.

And the Wall Street Journal’s Keith Zhai reported Xi “plans to speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the first time since the start of the Ukraine war, likely after he visits Moscow next week to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.” “A direct conversation with Mr. Zelensky, if it happens, would mark a significant step in Beijing’s efforts to play peacemaker in Ukraine, which have so far been met with skepticism in Europe.” “The new surge of diplomacy reflects a conviction on the part of Mr. Xi and the Communist Party that China can offer an alternative to the U.S.-led model of international relations by relying on commercial ties rather than military might to sway the decisions of other countries,” Zhai wrote.