Bloomberg: Xi Might Want to Ghost His Best Pal Putin
Although the Chinese leader is happy to fan the geopolitical flames, he’s been conspicuously silent on actual solutions.
‘No Limits’
Did the world really need another Putin-Xi photo? Probably not. But we have one. And Xi’s tie is annoyingly off-center:
The last time Vladimir Putin took a trip to China to say hello to his pal Xi Jinping, he had been plotting in his evil lair to invade Ukraine. Whether Xi knew about that, we’ll never know. But just three weeks after Putin’s visit, his “special military operation” was underway.
Bloomberg Opinion
Obviously, that hasn’t worked out so well: “Putin’s catastrophic error in attempting to invade a neighbor the size of France as though it were a glorified training exercise has, by some estimates, resulted in halving Russia’s military strength,” Marc Champion writes.
And Xi’s not faring much better. The Chinese economy looks to be even more askew than his tie. The two leaders — both who feel squeezed by the West — share a vested interest in not just geopolitics but also self-preservation.
The third-annual Belt and Road forum could not have taken place at a more chaotic time, given the events unfolding in the Mideast. Already, we can see messaging coming out of the event that aims to court the Muslim world. Russia and China will stop at nothing to convince their prospective allies in the Global South that the problem isn’t Putin’s aggression in Ukraine or Hamas’ grotesque terrorist acts in Israel, but rather the continued colonialism of the US and Europe. “Never mind Russian suppression of Muslim Tatars in occupied Crimea or Chinese internment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province,” Marc points out.
Although Xi is happy to fan those flames, he’s been conspicuously silent on actual solutions. “Beijing consistently says it wants peace. But the pathway it offers to get there is unclear,” Karishma Vaswani writes. That’s because Xi is meticulous about keeping his hands clean. He goes through the motions by arguing for the same old two-state solution proposal that China has encouraged for years. But there are no new ideas. No loose ends that could trap him down the line. That lack of effort highlights “China’s inexperience with complex geopolitical issues and its limited foreign policy capacity. Under Xi, the nation is not ready for the crown it says it wants to wear,” she says.
No wonder China’s public image when it comes to international affairs is broadly negative. Xi tiptoed around some of Putin’s requests: “Even though China has thrown Russia an economic lifeline, Putin must be disappointed with Xi’s decision not to provide lethal aid to his beleaguered military,” Minxin Pei writes.
Although all eyes are on the Belt and Road festivities today, they won’t be by tomorrow, when US President Joe Biden flies to Israel. Andreas Kluth says Biden will need to “use the symbolism of his presence to address multiple audiences, each with a subtly different message. The Israelis must viscerally feel his support. The Palestinians and their sympathizers worldwide must grasp that Biden genuinely cares about the lives of innocents in the Gaza Strip. The mullahs in Iran and the fighters of Hezbollah must sense his resolve to stop them from escalating.” If all goes well, the US leader could show that Washington, not Beijing, is the closest thing to a warden of global order today.
“With luck, Biden might even shame Xi back toward cooperation for the sake of international stability — perhaps when the two men meet in San Francisco next month,” Andreas notes. I, for one, hope Xi has his tie straightened for that photo op.
Bonus Mideast Reading: The market is still rather calm on Israel-Hamas. Is that fine, or is it dangerous? — John Authers