It’s getting worse every day.
An already inflamed relationship between the US and China is exacerbated by two new controversies – one over the exact origins of Covid-19 and the other due to stern US warnings that China should not arm Russia in its war in Ukraine.
The new disagreements are so fraught that the recent unprecedented diplomatic confrontation over a suspected Chinese spy balloon hovering over the mainland US isn’t even the most recent or intense source of contention.
This trio of confrontations — along with rising tensions between U.S. and Chinese forces in Asia and escalating standoffs over Taiwan — dramatize a long-running and once theoretical rivalry between superpowers that is suddenly an everyday reality.
Ukraine tensions: The US, citing unpublished intelligence, warned last week that China is considering sending deadly aid to bolster Russia’s armed forces — a situation that would effectively put China on the other side of a proxy war with the US and the NATO powers that have sent billions of dollars worth of weapons to Ukraine.
Beijing has long held Russia’s justifications for the invasion, which took place a year ago shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to the Chinese capital to agree to a borderless friendship with Xi.
China would prefer Russia, which shares its autocratic form of government, not to suffer a total defeat in Ukraine, which could lead to the ousting of close ally Putin. And China increasingly tends to view its global interests through the prism of its standoff with the US, so it may see an advantage in Washington being locked in an arm’s length conflict in Ukraine that is costing billions of dollars and where it has reserve sends to. military equipment and ammunition which therefore cannot be used to reinforce the armed forces in the Pacific. Delays in arms procurement in the US arms industry caused by Ukraine could also slow the flow of arms to Taiwan.
But a decision by China to join Russia in Ukraine would amount to a radical change in foreign policy — and another massive plunge in US-China relations. Washington and the European Union would certainly respond with sanctions against Chinese companies, a threat likely to give Beijing leaders pause for thought as the country’s economy slowly recovers from years of Covid isolation.
Read the full analysis here.
