Gifts With A Hint
- 5.09.2025, 22:43
Russia will face long-term consequences.
The "a la Mao Tse-tung" frill on Si Jinping is what I remember most from the images of the Beijing parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. The detail is not insignificant. Previously, Xi had tended to appear in public in a suit. They say, "Our country has overcome the legacy of Maoism, is embedded in the global economy and has become 'normal.'"
Putin must endure
In 1945, China's internationally recognized leader was Generalissimo Chang Kaishi. Moreover, from the 1930s until 1949, there was a monstrously brutal civil war in China. It was won by the Communists. French Mao to both Chinese citizens and the world: "We are not abandoning the legacy of the 'great helmsman' - dictatorship, police state, great power and expansionism."
I wonder what it was like for Vladimir Putin to watch this masquerade with subtext? His generation (like mine) grew up in an era of violent confrontation between Moscow and Beijing on the basis of the ideological struggle for primacy in the world communist movement. Condemning and denouncing "Chinese hegemonism" was as routine in the USSR as, say, fighting "the aggressive NATO bloc" or "American imperialism". China's border provocations were an everyday background of life in the Far East. The most famous of them was the attack on the Soviet outpost on Damansky Island in 1969.
Si Jinping could not help but realize that the franken coat would remind his guests from Moscow of just that. But he wore it anyway - he said, "bear with it, that's your lot now." China believes that it has already become superpower number two. It hopes, sooner or later, to become number one.
And Putin has no choice but to endure. He will be able to continue his aggression against Ukraine and maintain his regime without Beijing's support. But without China's gas purchases, without its supply of technology, including dual-use technology for Russia's military-industrial complex, and without Beijing's political and diplomatic assistance on the world stage, it would be extremely difficult for Russia to wage war. The Xi regime has made no secret of the fact that it is strategically important to it that Russia does not lose the war. After all, a defeat could potentially lead to a regime change in Moscow to one more inclined to normalize relations with the West. This is disadvantageous to Beijing. They want Russia to be stably dependent on China.
"Power of Siberia-2" - a gift to Gazprom
At the celebrations in the Chinese capital, Xi gave Putin a gift - he finally agreed to Moscow's long-standing proposal to build the "Power of Siberia-2" gas pipeline. The Kremlin badly needs it to keep the regime's main trough, Gazprom, in relative order. In addition, China is introducing a one-year trial visa-free regime for Russians. This is one of the most effective forms of influencing public consciousness and forming a positive image of China in Russia.
Moscow has not yet reciprocated Beijing's visa-free regime. Apparently, the Kremlin fears that the "visa-free travel" for Chinese citizens will increase their migration to the Far East and Siberia. After all, despite the final demarcation of the Russian-Chinese border in 2005, Chinese state school textbooks often mention that some Russian territories, such as Primorye, were unjustly taken from China by the Russian Empire. It doesn't seem like a claim, but...
Nevertheless, if Beijing deems the visa-free experiment a success, Moscow will have to reciprocate. Isolation from the West inevitably leads to increased dependence on China. Chinese business, Chinese technology, goods, tourists - all this every year strengthens and will continue to strengthen the pro-Chinese orientation of the Russian regime, and, thanks to massive propaganda processing, of Russian society.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with a good attitude to neighbors. Only there is one nuance - the neighboring nation is ruled by a brutal dictatorship that has created concentration camps for its own citizens, is preparing for a war for the "return of Taiwan" and is actually pursuing a neocolonial policy of exploitation in the countries of the "global South" and the so-called "post-Soviet space." Most Russians are indifferent to the fate of democracy in their own country and do not consider the aggression of "their" country against the neighboring, supposedly "brotherly" state - Ukraine - to be a big problem. Under these conditions, it will not be difficult to convince them that everything is fine in China and that it is a reliable partner of Russia. Actually, this is already a reality, if we believe Russian state sociologists.
The most important thing for the Russian regime, as well as for the Chinese regime, is self-preservation. For this purpose, both dictatorships use similar methods: propaganda and great power for the "masses," repression for dissenters, influence buying or intimidation for the outside world.
Russia today is China's junior partner, increasingly dependent on it. This dependence will sooner or later manifest itself in the military-political sphere. For example, when Beijing decides that it is time to "return Taiwan to its native harbor." According to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, China may well then present the Kremlin with a bill for its support and urge it to "ask" to distract the West with a military provocation against the alliance.
Probably, this will not happen. But the consequences of the current rapprochement with the Chinese regime at Putin's behest will have long-term negative consequences for Russia - military, political, economic and psychological.
Konstantin Eggert "Deutsche Welle"