Two years after Xi Jinping announced a “no-limits” partnership with Vladimir Putin, and as the leaders meet again in Beijing on May 16-17, the world is getting a good look at what China’s approach means in practice. It’s not pretty. As we explain this week, Chinese companies are fueling Putin’s war in Ukraine by selling Russian products needed to make weapons. China’s coast guard is harassing ships in the South China Sea and enforcing his spurious territorial claims. And Chinese spies are reportedly meddling in Britain and elsewhere.
Xi’s challenge to the world is more subtle than the bellicose Putin’s. But it’s still a problem. He wants a might-makes-right order, in which China does what it wants. Support for pariah states is meant to challenge and divide the West while avoiding direct conflict. The “gray zone” coercion in the South China Sea is not war but is meant to weaken enemies. China thinks these tactics can be sustained without falling into conflict. The question for any country that supports global rules is how far to let Xi go.
When it comes to Russia, China’s leader has gone pretty far. Xi has ignored Western pleas to reduce his support for Putin, seeing Russia as an indispensable partner in his campaign to dismantle the American-led order. The two countries have deepened their military and trade ties. America, in turn, has tightened sanctions and imposed tariffs on China in other areas. Of greatest concern is Chinese parts and machinery flowing to Russian arms manufacturers. Antony Blinken, America’s top diplomat, has said Russia would struggle to stay in Ukraine without China’s support. China is neither a participant nor a party to the crisis, Xi frets. But a long war that tests Western unity is to his advantage.
On the other side of the world, it’s the risk of a China-instigated conflict that worries America and its allies. The South China Sea is larger than the Mediterranean, but increasingly difficult to cross without encountering Chinese coast guard vessels doing dangerous things. Near two disputed shoals, Chinese guards routinely fire water cannons powerful enough to bend metal at Philippine ships. Farther south, Chinese vessels harass Malaysian ships prospecting for oil and gas in Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone, waters that China claims as its own.
The Philippines’ defense pact with the US is turning Chinese bullying into a superpower standoff. The stakes are just as high for Taiwan, which is preparing to swear in Lai Ching-te as its new president on May 20. China is increasingly acting as if the island’s air and sea borders do not exist. The US and its allies are bracing for the worst-case scenario: a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. But for now, the greatest danger lies in the gray zone, where Chinese actions risk triggering a spiral of escalation.
China's actions in Europe, Asia and elsewhere often lie somewhere between war and peace. A strong response can feel like an overreaction. But doing nothing means letting China make more gains incrementally. The first task for Western countries, then, is to expose China's actions for what they are: a glimpse into the world order that Chinese leaders seek, in which no country dares or wants to challenge its power. Exposing China prevents complacency. (Before the invasion of Ukraine, it took too long for European states to believe American warnings about Russia's malign intentions.) And information can change public opinion. Polls in some of the countries targeted by China's harassment suggest growing distrust.
All of which makes a second task easier. America must support its allies, not as an act of charity, but because they are a superpower that China lacks. The relentless Chinese and Russian efforts to carve up alliances, from NATO to the U.S. defense network in Asia, are an indirect compliment. Autocrats respect strength, and there is strength in numbers.
Finally, the West should capitalize on Xi’s country’s interest in stability. China’s leader has no intention of abandoning Putin. But unlike his Russian friend, he has no interest in chaos. Blinken has praised China for persuading Russia not to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine. Nor has China supplied him with lethal weapons. There are limits to their relationship, just as there are lines that China seems unwilling to cross in the South China Sea. Naïve dreams of changing China are a thing of the past: its every-country-for-itself worldview is all too clear. But Xi’s calculated approach to the world is also an opportunity. As China’s economy slows, it has an interest in avoiding a complete break with the West. The best way to temper Xi’s aggression and gray-zone bullying is to show that it comes at a cost.
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