Russia-China Ties | Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping have a lot in common, and that’s troubling

Veteran United States diplomat Winston Lord has a funny story. Long before he served as ambassador to China, he was on a secret flight in 1971, accompanying his boss, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger.

No American had set food in China since 1949. Kissinger knew this, and wanted to emulate an ‘Armstrong’, so hurriedly ensured that he was the first to deplane. But Lord quips, that he was in the front of the plane when it crossed Chinese airspace, thereby making him the first American to ‘enter’ China.

That trip, unknown to the world then, was to the lay the foundations for a historic meet. This February marked the 50th anniversary of US President Richard Nixon’s famed public visit to China, marking a historic détente with China, and turning a communist adversary into a key partner in the Cold War. Nixon called his trip “the week that changed the world”.

The world has changed even more so in the last few days, as Russian tanks crush down literal and metaphoric borders as Moscow assaults Kyiv. While Russia faces the heft of sanctions and global excoriation, there is a sense of an ‘ally’ in the corner, as Beijing has veered back towards Moscow.

Not since the famed Sino-Soviet split, have Moscow and Beijing found a new sense of bonhomie. That Vladimir Putin-Xi Jinping camaraderie has morphed into forging deeper security and economic ties. China presents itself as the world’s largest market, and a ready consumer of Russian energy. Putin hopes this will help mitigate the existing revenue hits from European Union markets, courtesy sanctions.

Both Putin and Xi share ire with the West, in what they perceive as ‘a sense of multilateralism with American characters’. One where Washingtonian institutions have long enjoyed geopolitical and economic hegemony. Their sense of authoritarian systems and governance is one that has been reviled ad-nauseum in the West, and seen as incongruous with liberal democratic values.

Both are statists to the core, and more often than not, invoke historical nostalgia, alluding Western powers precluding their success. As evinced with Putin’s speech, Ukraine is an integral part of the Russian identity. Modern day Russia began not in Moscow but in Kyiv, with Kievan Rus being where modern-day Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus draw their sense of identity from. Kyiv also has historical heft for the Bolshevik identity, the Slavic identity, and Orthodox Christianity.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which Putin has publicly described as the biggest catastrophe of the 20th century, he has had deep resentment and security concerns with NATO expansion and encirclements. Putin sees this as an existential crisis, further compounded by former Warsaw Pact countries joining the security alliance, Poland and Baltic countries, erstwhile USSR states.

Both China and Russia are revanchist powers, displaying how historical identity trumps modern day rule of law. Beijing has shown little reference for the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in claiming disputed islands in the South China Sea through a nine, now 11 dash line, that it deems sacrosanct. China has an ongoing dispute with Japan over the Senkaku-Diaoyu islands in the East-China Sea. Territorial skirmishes have been evinced with India on the Galwan Valley. Beijing even dubs Arunachal Pradesh as ‘Southern Tibet’ and back in the day, wasted no time in annexing Tibet.

Moscow and Beijing understand each other in another unique way. Russia has been the historical antagonist; China is the new geostrategic rival. Like NATO for Russia, China sees how the US wants to impede its growth and sphere of influence.  The rise of AUKUS, a direct military trilateral security pact, following the arrival of the Quad in the Indo-Pacific and a ‘Middle East Quad’ in West Asia, (the latter two not security driven), but all three of which are Washington driven with a sense of precluding a Beijing hegemon.

Xi’s government shares Putin’s empathy, as Washington continues to ratchet up the pressure accusing Beijing of genocide in western China with its Uighur minorities and routinely accuses Beijing like Moscow of State-sponsored cyber-attacks as Chinese tech companies face increasing scrutiny, as Russian companies face increasing sanctions.

Putin is a tsarist, and the tsars focused on conquests, and expansion. Xi too shares that sense of sphere of influence, as there are deep concerns in the West that China could emulate Russia’s brazenness and militarily wrest control of Taiwan. Beijing has displayed force clamping down on pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong. A similarity that the Kremlin and the CCP share is the use of force when control is slipping away.

Putin has been in power for over two decades and has quashed dissidents and opponents with ease, the most recent one being Alexei Navalny. Xi, is finishing his first decade in office, but perhaps operated best behind the scenes when he ousted the then front-runner, Bo Xilai, in 2012. Bo, seen as Xi’s main rival, was disgraced and convicted on bribery and embezzlement charges, and his wife a prime suspect in a murder trial.

The two autocrats have brought their countries closer together than ever. But for both civilisational countries, tsars and emperors have fallen because of hubris and a conquest too many.