China sees NATO as a tool of American aggression, and blames the expansion of the alliance for the war in Ukraine
TO THE FERVENT revolutionaries who ran China in 1968, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia was a monstrous crime, but not a surprise. Watching from Beijing, Chairman Mao Zedong and his aides saw a vindication of a long-standing suspicion: that the once-proud Soviet Union was now ruled by “socialist imperialists”, on a par with the capitalists in charge of America, the original imperialist superpower.
Half a century after those Mao-era enmities, which eventually boiled over into a brief Sino-Soviet border war, the world order is turned upside-down. China’s leader, President Xi Jinping, is the avowed best friend and ideological soulmate of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. As Mr Putin ordered an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, he did not conceal his war aims. He wants to turn that neighbouring country of 44m people into a neutral, demilitarised satellite.
Chinese officials talk of Russia’s legitimate desire to see “a balanced, effective and sustainable European security mechanism”. That builds on a joint statement agreed to by Mr Xi and Mr Putin hours before the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing on February 4th, in which China backed Russian proposals for “long-term, legally binding security guarantees in Europe”. In plain language, Russia is demanding a veto over European security arrangements and alliances.
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