In an article (February 22) posted on the US' Stimson Centre website, Yun Sun, Senior Fellow
at the Stimson Centre, wrote that "If Crimea serves as a precedent, China will remain silent on
the issues of sovereignty and territorial integrity, which in reality translates into a tacit
recognition of the altered status quo without publicly stating so". She explained that "There are
several nuanced differences in China’s position this time around, however. The first is the
Foreign Ministry’s statement that all countries’ reasonable security concerns deserve to be
respected. In line with China’s balancing act, such a statement applies to Ukraine’s security
concern with a Russian invasion, as well as Russian security concerns over the expansion of
NATO". She pointed to Wang Yi’s statement "that the result in Ukraine today is the
consequence of the failure to implement the Minsk II Agreement" and added China views both
parties as responsible for the failure. According to her, China claims it will decide its position
according to the merits of the matter itself, a clear move to refute speculations that China will
side with Russia based on the joint statement Putin and Xi issued earlier this month in Beijing
about Sino-Russia relations having “no limit.” Yun Sun claimed that the Chinese were not
anticipating a real invasion by Russia and there was a sense of shock on the morning of
February 22 in the Chinese policy community as they "subscribed to the theory that Putin was
only posturing and that U.S. intelligence was inaccurate as in the case of invading Iraq". She
added that "for the Chinese, Putin’s brinksmanship had achieved his goals of forcing the U.S.
and Europe back to the negotiation table, driving a wedge between NATO allies, inflating
energy prices, and deterring NATO expansion, and, therefore, there was no need to follow
through at the risk of severe sanctions".
(Comment: Yun Sun has specialised on China and appears to have a pro-Beijing bias. While
her claim about the Chinese policy community being taken by surprise could be true, it is likely
this was because they were not kept briefed by Chinese government officials.)
An article in the Hongkong-based South China Morning Post (February 16) discussing how
the Ukraine crisis would affect China, quoted Zhang Tuosheng, a researcher with the Beijingbased think tank Grandview Institution and former strategic issues researcher with the PLA
National Defence University. He said: “Of course we don’t want [an invasion]. We have a close
relationship with Russia and maintain a good one with Ukraine.” He added that an invasion, while unlikely, would do Beijing no good in terms of the economic and diplomatic pressure it
would face from the US and Europe, and that China wanted to see agreement reached through
negotiation. Shi Yinhong, an international affairs professor at Renmin University, agreed and
said, “If a war breaks out in Ukraine, the United States will realistically have to reduce its
attention and resources to China in the Indo-Pacific,” he said. “But on the other hand, the war
[would be] a huge step down the path of radicalisation in world politics, and doomed to inflict
great pressure on China for an arms race, as well as Taiwan and the South China Sea.” Shi
added that it was difficult to conclude how the challenges of a more complicated international
environment would affect Beijing’s calculations on Taiwan.
Separately, the Global times (February 16) wrote, “The escalation of Russia-Ukraine tensions
stoked by the U.S. has raised concerns about potential supply chain disruptions ranging from
essential raw materials for semiconductors such as neon, to agricultural products including corn
and wheat.” The People’s Daily also published an article that was sympathetic to the Ukrainian
position and blamed the U.S. and Western media for “hyping” the situation. In response to a
question from Russian state media on February 14, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson
Wāng Wénbīn said that the Chinese embassy in Kyiv currently maintains normal operations
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