The countries’ friendship has “no limits,” they declared. Given that the leaders met just weeks before the invasion, it would be understandable to conclude that China should have had better knowledge of the Kremlin’s plans. But growing evidence suggests that the echo chamber of China’s foreign policy establishment might have misled not only the country’s internet users, but its own officials. My colleague Edward Wong reported that over a period of three months, senior U.S. officials held meetings with their Chinese counterparts and shared intelligence that detailed Russia’s troop buildup…
Tag: Putin, Vladimir V
We Are All Living in Vladimir Putin’s World Now
Over the last two months, the Moscow-Beijing alliance has moved from hypothesis to reality, thanks to the shared goal of challenging American dominance. While Chinese elites are hardly excited about Russia’s reckless invasion of Ukraine (the Chinese hold dear their commitment to nonviolation of state sovereignty), there is no doubt they will stay on Moscow’s side. Look at how Beijing refused to officially describe Mr. Putin’s war as an invasion. President Xi Jinping may be the biggest beneficiary of the current crisis: America not only looks weak; it also now…
Your Monday Briefing: Ukraine Agrees to Talks
Good morning. We’re covering diplomacy and posturing in Ukraine, research into the pandemic’s origins and another North Korean missile test. Ukraine agrees to Russian talks President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine agreed to talks with Russia “without preconditions” on the Belarusian border. Just before the announcement, President Vladimir Putin issued a new threat to the West, telling the Russian military to put its nuclear forces on alert. Western powers are uniting around Ukraine. The E.U. said it would close its airspace to Russian planes and finance the donation of weapons. Turkish…
Vladimir Putin’s Clash of Civilizations
Still, even the most successful scenario for his invasion of Ukraine — easy victory, no real insurgency, a pliant government installed — seems likely to undercut some of the interests he’s supposedly fighting to defend. NATO will still nearly encircle western Russia, more countries may join the alliance, European military spending will rise, more troops and material will end up in Eastern Europe. There will be a push for European energy independence, some attempt at long-term delinking from Russian pipelines and production. A reforged Russian empire will be poorer than…
Russia and China Cemented Economic Ties Before Ukraine Invasion
“If they don’t comply with the U.S., they’re in trouble with the U.S., but if they don’t comply with China, they could also face penalties in China,” he said. Of course, collecting fines from companies that are unwilling to pay and monitoring whether businesses comply with the rules could be difficult, Mr. Chorzempa added. “It’s already proving difficult to monitor the things that are already controlled, and if you expand that list, that’s going to be a real challenge to verify what’s going to Russia,” he said. Russia’s Attack on…
Putin Has Made Sure the World Will Never Be the Same
The musician and actress Selena Gomez has twice as many followers on Instagram — over 298 million — as Russia has citizens. Yes, Vladimir, I can hear you laughing from here and echoing Stalin’s quip about the pope: “How many divisions does Selena Gomez have?” She has none. But she is an influencer with followers, and there are thousands and thousands of Selenas out there on the World Wide Web, including Russian celebrities who are posting on Instagram about their opposition to the war. And while they cannot roll back…
Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Tests China’s ‘Sovereignty’ Rhetoric
As Russian troops have poured into Ukraine, officials in Beijing have fumed at any suggestion that they are betraying a core principle of Chinese foreign policy — that sovereignty is sacrosanct — in order to shield Moscow. They will not even call it an invasion. “Russia’s operation” is one preferred description. The “current situation” is another. And China’s leader, Xi Jinping, says his position on the crisis is perfectly coherent. “The abrupt changes in the eastern regions of Ukraine have been drawing the close attention of the international community,” Mr.…
Your Monday Briefing: The Olympics Begin
Good morning. We’re covering the start of the Winter Olympics, tensions between Russia and Ukraine, and Afghanistan’s crumbling health care system. The Winter Olympics begin China’s leader, Xi Jinping, opened the Beijing Games on Friday with a clear intent to celebrate his country’s increasingly assured global status. Xi stood defiantly with Vladimir Putin, the leader of Russia, a calculated display of solidarity to show their partnership and project their growing impatience with Western censure. (President Biden and other democratic leaders critical of China’s human rights record stayed home.) China also…
Hawks Are Standing in the Way of a New Republican Party
Many of today’s Republicans thus came of age at a time when hawkishness on behalf of liberal values was understood as conservative. Yet the values lying at the foundation of that worldview and shaping our institutions are antithetical to everything conservatives claim to cherish: a ruthless market ideology that puts short-term shareholder gains and the whims of big finance above the demands of the national community; a virulent cultural libertinism that dissolves bonds of family and tradition. What conservatives revile as “woke capital” is just this acidic combination of a…
The Impact of Jan. 6 Is Still Rippling Throughout the World
Up until Jan. 6, one might have seen these developments through the lens of ordinary American politics, with its disagreements on issues like trade, immigration and abortion. But the uprising marked the moment when a significant minority of Americans showed themselves willing to turn against American democracy itself and to use violence to achieve their ends. What has made Jan. 6 a particularly alarming stain (and strain) on U.S. democracy is the fact that the Republican Party, far from repudiating those who initiated and participated in the uprising, has sought…