A few weeks ago, China was celebrating their moment in the Olympic spotlight–yet another coming out party designed to show us that China is a superpower and a major player on the world stage. They used that time to re-affirm their special relationship with Putin’s Russia as both countries (and Saudi Arabia) work together to usher in a Post-American World Order. All seemed good until Putin did the unthinkable: He decided to invade a democratic Ukraine and bomb children’s hospitals. One can imagine that Xi Jingping flew into a rage when he learned of Putin’s geo-political disaster. Within days, Russia was demonized by the world, cut off from its huge savings account, protests spread to six continents at the speed of sound, and Russia was abandoned by just about every company ever to be involved with their economy. Suddenly, Xi’s buddy and special partner was not only a huge liability (21st Century Hitler), but was providing the blue-print by which China could be punished if Xi goes through on his threat of invading Taiwan.
While the global world order has seemed to be filled with lacsadaisacal actors and a fading West, the battle for Ukraine has stirred the entire world. It seems people are not ready to see democracies (no matter how dysfunctional) get bombed to oblivion by authoritarian bullies. Like Putin, Xi is all about making his country “great again,” and that often involved threatening a democratically-elected neighbor and doing things like establishing prison camps for Uyighrs. The Mao/Stalin shtick with occassional military skirmishes and oppression of ethnic minorities was working just fine. The world was scared of Xi and Putin and their “terrifying” militaries. But Putin went to far and the world (led by Ukraine) quickly figured out how to make a wanna-be re-emerging empire’s life hell.
Now China must ask some serious questions. Their own military is highly untested, having not been in a war since 1979 when they lost to Vietnam. Taiwan is so mountainous, it makes Vietnam look like Kansas. But in flat Ukraine, Putin’s tanks are having a hard time driving down highways. How will the Chinese middle-class react if McDonalds, KFC, Apple, Givenchy, and Prada permanently disappear? Then there’s the fact that China is already struggling with energy shortages and losing Ukraine as a source of grain is going to open the door to famine. What would happen if Brazil, Thailand, the USA and other food suppliers cut China off. Both China and Russia are countries surrounded by other nations that hate them. They have very few allies. What if Asia-Pacific nations form a NATO-like alliance or people from all over the world join forces with Taiwan to fight against China. Russia has struggled with an invasion by sea in Ukraine. Taiwan has really only one place to launch and amphibious assault. Could the Chinese regime withstand the humiliation and pariah status that Russia is now incurring? The U.S.A. might be weaker than it once was in a post-American world order, but neither Russia nor China have earned the goodwill to replace it. China, in fact, was the source of the Covid pandemic and is still struggling to contain it. China will continue to try to warn people away from Taiwan, but Putin has provided the world with an opportunity to create a blueprint if China does the unthinkable.
China, which is still caught in the middle-income trap and is seeing its growth slow significantly, is not in the strong position that it has been pretending to be in. Like Putin, Xi has been hoping that the smoke and mirrors shtick would continue to frighten the world. But Putin exposed himself and his country as a paper tiger. And while China is a far bigger part of the global economic engine; it has many of the fragilities of Russia, and in some cases, on a bigger scale (China’s enormous middle class is probably going to react far more aggressively than Russia’s small one). And both have put their future hopes in a style of government that invovles a cult of personality authoritarianism. No matter how big and wealthy a nation, that creates severe vulnerabilities all throughout the system.
This is an opportunity for the United States, Europe, Japan, Australia, South Korea, and emerging nations to re-draw the political world order. Although the world is most certainly. headed into a recession and a global energy crisis; the two most powerful rivals to American and Western power have been significantly de-fanged. The United States has not been a responsible actor for most of the past couple of decades, but like Ukraine, it is at least a nation that still sloppily believes in democracy and global commerce. Putin’s miscalculation was so bad and brought such ill will, he has accidently checked China’s aggressive foreign policy. Whatever deal they made in Beijing at the Olympics, Xi should get his money back from Putin.