A global proxy war: Ukraine is now the center of our Eurasian competition with Russia and China

The Putin-Xi summit in Moscow ended without any grand pronouncements or overwhelming actions. Yet it produced a joint statement that deserves careful reflection. The statement makes sense only in the context of substantive Russian strategy in Ukraine: Russia is in this for the long haul, as is China.

Major public statements from dictatorships often are perceived as lacking substance, given their reliance on boilerplate language and the difficulty of harmonizing an authoritarian regime’s political-linguistic tropes. Hence, observers miss the crucial fact that, in regimes such as Xi Jinping’s China and Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the specific phrasing and structure of major statements is of exceptional importance.

Equally relevant is the fact that China’s foreign ministry published only a short English translation of the China-Russia statement on the Ukraine War, not a formal translation of the joint statement that Xi and Putin signed. This appears unremarkable, except that in each case where China and Russia produce major documents, they routinely publish an English readout through either the Kremlin or the Chinese foreign ministry.

The fact that the primary publicly released text is in Chinese, rather than English or Russian, is therefore a clear choice. China is the senior partner in its relationship with Russia. But the China-Russia relationship is Beijing’s most important diplomatic bilateral linkage. China’s decision not to provide a public English translation indicates that it sees its relations with Russia as key to a new Eurasian order, one that will be founded on principles wholly different from the old Anglo-American Eurasian order — and one requiring a new language.

The joint statement appears more muted than the February 2022 “No Limits” declaration. Indeed, it cites the no-limits statement without using that phrase. However, it is clearly written in line with the previous declaration, given that Moscow and Beijing commit to following its “principles and spirit.”

This points to a disturbing reality, at least for many Americans and faux-realists who now play geopolitics: The China-Russia entente has far deeper roots than the Ukraine War. China and Russia concluded their partnership in perpetuity, before the war, the massive Washington-Brussels sanctions packages or the imprecisely termed “proxy war” between Russia and NATO began.

The above is disturbing because it forces American strategists toward a true paradigm shift. The United States is no longer the sole consequential global power with the perceived ability to influence the choices of other powers. Rather, China and Russia, of their own volitions and recognizing a natural alignment in their own interests and values, have engaged in a large-scale rapprochement.

This is the meaning of the odd phrase in the declaration that the Sino-Russian partnership “has the nature of non-alignment, non-confrontation, and non-targeting of third countries.” China and Russia will work together, not primarily because of U.S. actions, but because the two powers wish to break today’s Eurasian security system and reshape it to their own ends. There is no context in which either regime would view the U.S.-led Eurasian order as beneficial to their interests, simply because the U.S. is not a Eurasian power and, therefore, has not a shred of business in Eurasia, as Moscow and Beijing see it.

Moscow may be the junior partner in this relationship, a fact reflected in the memorandum’s text, which cites Russian support for various Chinese positions — its claim to Taiwan, its actions against Muslims in Xinjiang, and the Chinese Global Civilization Initiative are three clear examples; a careful reading also identifies full-throated Chinese support for Russian revisionism in Europe. Both Russia and China pledge to respect sovereignty and territorial integrity, while making explicit that Taiwan is neither sovereign nor controls an independent territory.

But one could easily read the document to reflect upon the whole of the European security system as well.

It argues that the Ukraine War, and Russia’s broader confrontation with NATO, is not an example of third-country targeting but a legitimate Russian response to Western encroachment, the threat of “color revolutions” — explicitly mentioned in the text as a key cooperative point for both sides — and “hegemonism,” which is contrasted with “multilateralism” and “democracy.” These are themes resurrected from the February 2022 statement. Russia’s war in Ukraine is legitimate, under this reading, because Ukraine is not a country, so its borders deserve no international respect.

This position must be followed to its logical conclusion, particularly in light of the Chinese “peace plan.” The document supports direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, ideally through a UN framework. But one might read this in the same manner as China’s historical calls for “peaceful” unification with Taiwan, in which the Chinese objective remains absorption but by economic rather than military means. Similarly, Ukraine should be brought to the table to negotiate about every aspect of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Meanwhile, NATO is completely out of the question as an odious reminder of the “Cold War Mentality” that China and Russia say they so strongly oppose. In fact, then, China supports whatever Russia’s objectives may be in Ukraine, as unlimited as they may be. There is no indication of Chinese hesitance or displeasure over Russian actions, only a logical endorsement of the Kremlin’s war of conquest.

The Chinese insistence on “great changes unseen in a century” indicates the scale of China’s ambition. Eurasia will not be remade in just a few weeks or months, so there is no reason to assume China sees the war’s continuation as antithetical to its interests. Rather, it is completely harmonious with them, as the war destabilizes the Eurasian security system and enables its revision.

Russia, therefore, has time to prosecute the war as it chooses. China will not force the Kremlin to negotiate, nor to modify its aims, since (in its view) the great confrontation with the U.S. has begun and will continue for some time, likely decades. Russia has the green light to select a patient incremental strategy, one that has as its end goal the conquest of all of Ukraine, and as its means the erosion of Ukraine’s power grid to hollow out the Ukrainian logistics system and tear off half the country in the next 18 months. After this will come negotiations that Russia will use to disrupt Ukraine’s relations with the West and, subsequently, to conquer the country in toto by 2025.

The U.S. and its allies must therefore modify their intellectual framework. Perhaps all wars must end in negotiation, but there is no use in preparing for negotiations with Russia unless one accepts, as a starting point, maximalist Russian ambition. It is an oversimplification that defending Ukraine deters China from assaulting Taiwan. Rather, it is that as Russia and China work to break the Eurasian security system, the U.S. must defend all aspects of that system or risk a complete unraveling.

Seth Cropsey is founder and president of Yorktown Institute. He served as a naval officer and as deputy undersecretary of the Navy and is the author of “Mayday: The Decline of American Naval Supremacy” (2013) and “Seablindness: How Political Neglect Is Choking American Seapower and What to Do About It” (2017).