Russian Corpse: China’s Poorly Conceived Bedfellow
By Michael Moran, Skytop Contributor / January 22nd, 2023
Michael Moran is a geo-strategy and sustainability expert whose books and documentaries have won awards and influenced the global debate for decades. He currently serves as Chief Markets, Risk & Sustainability Officer at Microshare, a global leader in Smart Building and ESG data technologies, and is a Lecturer in Political Risk at the Josef Korbel School of International Affairs at the University of Denver.
Moran is a former Principal and Chief US/Macro Analyst at Control Risks and led digital content strategy at the Council on Foreign Relations, winning three Emmy Awards for documentary work while there. He also has launched successful editorial offerings for Roubini Global Economics, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and other clients and was a member of the launch team at MSNBC.com, where he served as a columnist and international editor for over a decade.
He is author of several books, including The Reckoning: Debt, Democracy and the Future of American Power, of which Ian Bremmer of Eurasia Group wrote: “Moran is a sharp thinker and fine storyteller, and The Reckoning is a terrifically engaging read.” Moran is co-author with economist Charles Robertson of The Fastest Billion: The Story Behind Africa’s Economic Revolution and a novel, The Fall (2015). His analysis of political risk and international affairs has appeared regularly on CNN, CNBC and other major broadcast outlets and in the pages of The New York Times, the Financial Times, Forbes, Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy magazines and many other journals.
Shackled to a Corpse
In early 1915, as the initial and misplaced nationalist euphoria about going to war waned, a wave of foreboding swept over the Imperial German officer corps. Germany’s plan gambled on a swift defeat of France before Russian forces could mobilize in the East. That gamble failed, bogging down in the mud of trench warfare on the Western Front. The dreaded “two-front war” was now unavoidable.
Meanwhile, to the south, the Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia that kicked off the global conflict and compelled Germany to join the war, had ended in a Serbian victory. It suddenly dawned on Berlin that German troops would have to save its hapless Hapsburg ally, who by then had not only lost territory to Serbia but also was being kicked around by the Italian Army.
“We are shackled to a corpse,” German Gen. Erich von Ludendorff, then leading an army against Russian forces in the East, reputedly complained to his planning staff.
Echoes of Vienna
Whether Ludendorff uttered that phrase or not, it became emblematic of one of the great German strategic blunders of World War I: aligning itself with an empire about to collapse into history’s dustheap. (Two, indeed, if you throw in the Ottoman Empire). “Shackled to a corpse” is a phrase today resonating anew in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, whose decision to double-down on its “no limits relationship” with Vladimir Putin’s Russia has also not played out quite as Xi Jinping may have hoped.
Now just over 11 months since the two leaders met at the Winter Olympics in Beijing (on Feb. 4, 2022), just about nothing has gone right for either side in this modern echo of the Dual Alliance that once linked the two Teutonic powers of Central Europe. Russia’s bungled and brutal war in Ukraine has effectively blocked Moscow’s access to global markets, humiliated its pretenses to reclaiming “Great Power” status, and done something even Saddam Hussein and ISIS had failed to do: Unite the West.
China, meanwhile, has bungled a war of its own – against COVID-19 – igniting domestic unrest and a vast and dangerously uncontrolled resurgence of the pandemic within its borders. Its “ZERO COVID” approach has also disrupted its economy and exacerbated a real estate and banking crisis that has Chinese GDP growth below 4% for the first time since the first year of the pandemic in 2020. Before that, you have to go all the way back to 1990. China’s decision not to distance itself from Putin’s war crimes have brought international criticism to the famously thin-skinned Chinese, who have responded by dusting off old containment narratives and ramping up tensions over Taiwan and the South China Sea.
Own Goals
Neither China nor Russia made the grade for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar – China failed to qualify, and Russia’s normally able side was suspended due to the war in Ukraine. So much for soft power. Nonetheless, both managed some spectacular “own goals” on the global stage that have long term implications.
The West may never again manage to construct the kind of global coalitions that the United States shepherded in the late 20th Century, first in the 1990-91 Gulf War, in the Balkans and then Afghanistan. The myopia and politicized intelligence of the Iraq War is a tragic burden for U.S. leadership, an own goal of Washington’s own making.
But the failure to win outright approval (let alone aid or weapons donations) on Ukraine’s behalf from rising powers like Brazil, South Africa or Indonesia is hardly an endorsement of Russia’s war, nor China’s Machiavellian “take the oil and run” stance. This was on display dramatically in normally quiescent international forums. The UN General Assembly, not noted for staking out either brave or pro-American positions, voted to condemn the war in March and in October to demand the reversal of so-called referendums on sovereignty which Russia staged in areas captured by its initial invasion.
Even more striking, Russia’s war failed to win any semblance of support from its fellow members of two pro-Beijing forums, the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Shanghai Cooperation Council, where no member or partner state publicly recognizes the legitimacy of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Despite enormous strains caused by inflation, post-pandemic distortions and artificially high energy prices, every economy of the OECD and the EU managed to avoid recession in 2022. By contrast, only two of the 42 major economies tracked by The Economist’s 2022 economic data index shrank: Hong Kong, whose usually buoyant economy is reeling from Beijing’s anti-democratic repression, saw GDP shrink by 4.5%. And Russia, despite pumping oil and gas at unsustainable rates and selling it at steep discounts, saw its GDP drop 4.0%. That’s not the 8% collapse some were predicting as western sanctions were being mulled back in the spring of 2022, but add the exodus of foreign investment, the loss of lucrative hard currency energy markets in the west and the shift of productive capacity from consumer to military goods, and Russia’s economy has all the makings of a long hangover and perhaps a permanent reduction of potential growth.
Poor Prognosis
This latter issue may be the most crucial to Putin, whose popularity rests on two pillars: restoring Russia’s dignity and influence on the world stage and increasing incomes for the Russian middle class. IMF projections suggest the reckless Ukraine war has undercut both of these achievements, with Russian median household income declining by 2.5% of about $11,800 in 2022, leaving it far below its peak in 2013 of about $15,875 during the peak of that year’s commodity boom. This has accelerated a brain drain that has been growing ever since 2012, when allegations of a stolen election by Putin led to a crackdown on freedom of speech and ultimately an end to Russia’s nascent post-Soviet experiment with democracy.
The toll looks grim and permanent. The IMF has forecast that a decade of war starting in Crimea and culminating in the 2022 Ukraine invasion has cost Russia dearly in terms of economic potential. In 2013, the IMF’s flagship report, the World Economic Outlook, estimated Russia’s growth potential given good political and monetary policy choices for the next decade would be 3.5% annually. By 2022, when the most recent WEO was released, that had shrunk to 0.7%.
Meanwhile, its main cash commodities, oil and gas, are being sold at fire sale prices to countries like China, Turkey and India who have happily taken advantage of Moscow’s predicament: It can pump a great deal of petroleum out of the ground, but it can’t easily or quickly replace all of the markets its Ukraine war has alienated. Oil sales have, indeed, prevented the worst for Russia’s economy and shielded it somewhat from western sanctions. But the cost measured in lost revenue, prestige, technological exchanges and national vitality is enormous. Russia had, during Putin’s first 10 years in office, largely righted the decline that began in the late Soviet years. Now the decline is back, and to many it looks close to fatal.
Goose Step, Not Lock Step
Despite state media claims, within Russia the idea of an anti-American alliance with China is not universally popular, and the Chinese are not entirely thrilled, either. The two nations share a border as long and twisted as their bilateral relationship, including the bitter fraternal rift between Stalin and Mao in the 1950s that Henry Kissinger exploited in 1971 to great effect.
Most Russians continue to view China as more of a frenemy than an ally. Anyone, as I have, who has spent time in the vast Russian Far East (population about 3.5 million) knows that the locals worry quite a bit about the 80 million Chinese and 25.7 million North Koreans who live in crowded border regions than they do about Japanese or American aggression.
Russia and China may, indeed, claim a “no limits” friendship, and their similarly minded governing elites may even mean it. But confusing the statements of autocratic governments and their lapdog media outlets with reality is to underestimate the forces opposed to such madness internally. Despite intensive monitoring and censorship, pro-Ukrainian sentiment gets through on Chinese social media regularly.
Writing in September in The Diplomat, the veteran Chinese journalist Mu Chunshan noted that unhappiness with China’s alignment on Ukraine is widespread and that Russian actions in Ukraine and its ham-handed efforts to influence Chinese public opinion often backfire. Mu notes that Russia’s use of referendums to try and justify its seizure of Ukrainian territory brought out particularly pointed objects. “Some pro-Ukrainian Chinese have used the Russian referendum as a weapon to counter pro-Russian groups,” Mu writes. “Can the result of a referendum on a part of a country seceding be recognized?” they argue. “Taiwan is a part of China. If Taiwan holds its own referendum to declare independence in the future, will you accept it?”
Blinkered or Blinking?
The very existence of such debates – though obviously inevitable in a population as large and diverse as China’s – nonetheless strikes fear into the heart of the ruling Communist Party of China (CCP). Even a hint of public criticism of CCP conduct or policy stances immediately opens questions about the party’s ability to sustain its monopoly over political debate indefinitely. The world was stunned in late November when, after years of draconian anti-COVID policies, public protests erupted that not only targeted those policies but also the judgment of President-for-Life Xi. The government backed down quickly, and in a series of moves that looked a lot like panic, entirely undid its Zero COVID policies overnight, almost guaranteeing the public health disaster that now stalks the country.
In the democratic West, there tends to be an assumption – based on experience from previous global crises – that unity will inevitably fade as public attention moves on from Ukraine and the political class wearies of the cost of supporting the country through a grueling, long war. But as Xi’s decision on COVID policies demonstrates, the Chinese, too, occasionally blink. Virtually all the focus of western analysis on the topic is a search for the weak link. Hungary? Turkey? Recalcitrant Republican populists? Perhaps grandstanding on peace talks by the French?
The fact is, the West is backing a winning cause, and one where ethics and national interest coincide. No such factors exist to buttress China’s will to continue supporting Putin in the face of repeated defeats on the battlefield and gradual but very real erosion of prestige globally. In contrast, as western defense budgets swell, NATO expands to include Finland and Sweden, Taiwan military sales increase and the decoupling of Beijing’s very lucrative links with the United States market accelerate, it is China that may grow weary.
And let’s say this plainly: Russia is no corpse. The undead might be a better description, a country with tremendous natural and human resources, scientific and cultural achievements lobotomized by an authoritarian, self-interested kleptocracy. China has its own experience with such a state on its own northeastern border, North Korea, and has shown a stubborn willingness to tolerate outrageous and destabilizing behavior from its ally. But Russia can expect a different experience in its war with Ukraine than the North Koreans experienced in its own war in the 1950s. Back then, the Chinese entered the war with hundreds of thousands of troops to prevent its ally from losing. But there will be no Chinese hordes streaming into Ukraine to save Russia. Moscow’s misdeeds will have lasting impact on its citizens, its future growth and the quality of its friendships – even the “no limits” one it allegedly enjoys with China.