‘Damaged goods’: Why Putin is now Beijing’s problem brother

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China’s revolutionary leader Chairman Mao Zedong absolutely detested being the junior partner to Russia.

Although the propaganda described the richer and more advanced Soviet Union as a Communist “big brother” and role model, Mao privately said that it was more like the relationship between emperor and subject: “They’re trying to eat us up”, Mao complained, according to his long-serving private physician Li Zhisui. And while Mao’s regime encouraged the people of China to study Russian as the most important language, Mao studied English instead.

Mao Zedong detested being the junior partner to Russia.Credit: Getty

“When I say ‘learn from the Soviet Union’, we don’t have to learn how to shit and piss from the Soviet Union too, do we?” demanded a resentful Mao, according to Dr Li’s memoirs. “I’d rather not learn from the Soviet Union. I want to learn from the US.”

So it must be deeply gratifying for his successor, Xi Jinping, that the power relativity has been reversed. China’s economy is now 10 times the size of Russia’s. The US today has only one peer competitor, and it’s not Russia.

Twenty days before Vladimir Putin’s ill-begotten invasion of Ukraine, he and Xi sealed their self-styled “no-limits” partnership. As the invasion has flailed, Russia increasingly has become dependent on China. Beijing vastly has stepped up its orders for Russian oil and gas. In this way, Xi is pumping into Putin’s coffers the cash he needs to keep his regime solvent.

The Russian analyst Alexander Gabuev, of the Carnegie Endowment think tank, last year described Putin’s Russia as “China’s New Vassal”.

The new power reality was spoken by Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov three weeks ago at the Shangri-La Dialogue, when he addressed a Chinese representative: “Is it true that China became oldest brother and Russia became youngest brother?” China’s status as the senior partner carried responsibilities and Reznikov drove home the point: “Could you say to your youngest brother to stop killing Ukrainians? Please. Thank you.”

But Xi has declined to restrain Putin, of course. He has tried to portray himself as an even-handed statesman by tabling a peace proposal. But it’s a non-starter. Because while it calls for a ceasefire, it doesn’t require Russian forces to withdraw from Ukrainian territory. This means it’s unacceptable to Ukraine. So it’s not actually a serious proposal.

Reznikov put it this way to delegates at Shangri-La. You are home in your kitchen when an intruder breaks in, murders your mother and rapes your sister. Do you sit down with him and discuss peace while he’s still defiling your home and family?

The weekend’s abortive coup, by weakening Putin further, has made the Russian leader even more dependent on his big brother in Beijing. “Putin is now damaged goods, unquestionably,” says Peter Tesch, former Australian ambassador to Moscow and former head of strategy in the Australian Defence Department.

Tesch points out that during the tense standoff between Putin and the mutinous Yevgeny Prigozhin, “nobody in the Russian elites, nobody in the docile Duma [parliament], nobody in the security arena actually came out with an official public position” in support of their president.

“The uniformed ranks didn’t form a cordon across the M4” to block Prigozhin’s advance on Moscow. “They stepped to one side.” Construction workers instead were ordered to gouge great holes and trenches in the motorway in a desperate bid to halt the convoy. ” Amid this vast Byzantine power structure of Putin’s, suddenly clay feet are visible. Putin’s certainly not out of the game, but it’s a much more complicated game now.”

Observers who struggle to accept this self-evident reality are a sign of the “admirable success of decades of Kremlin propaganda – we have absorbed this idea that Putin is 10 feet tall, and he’s not. I think the asymmetry of the relationship has been evident to all parties for a long time. No matter how they dress it up, Putin and Xi know that theirs is not a relationship of equals. Obviously, China is in a very strong position.”

What might Xi Jinping be thinking about his little Russian brother after the tumult of the Prigozhin rebellion? “His advisers must be saying, ‘Mr General Secretary, your very good friend has been weakened, probably fatally’,” suggests Kyle Wilson, a Russian-speaking Australian former diplomat and intelligence analyst.

Illustration: Dionne Gain. Credit:

He points out an internet meme in circulation on the weekend – Xi writing a “Memo to self: No mercenaries.”

Peter Tesch muses: “The Chinese must be sitting there with their collective Marxist-Leninist heads in their hands saying ‘morons, incompetents’. I am sure they have their own analysis of the rickety power structure in Russia. There’s no binding ideology in Russia to hold the place together. China has ‘Xi Jinping Thought’, but Russia has no such thing.”

Some Russians see value in this idea. Last week a Moscow institute created the first program outside China to study Xi Jinping Thought – the Xi Jinping Thought Research Laboratory at the Russian Academy of Sciences. “Xi-ism is on the march,” was how Politico reported the news.

The Chinese Communist Party’s immediate public reaction to Prigozhin’s attempted uprising? Politely supportive. It happened that Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko was in Beijing as the coup effort unfolded.

China’s Foreign Minister, Qi Gang, made a point of appearing publicly with Rudenko, smiling for the cameras. This reassuring gesture was accompanied by a public statement from Beijing that Russia-China relations were “in the best period in history” and another statement that “China supports Russia in maintaining national stability and achieving development and prosperity”.

China’s Foreign Ministry brushed aside the “Wagner Group incident” as Russia’s “internal affair”. And Party-owned media politely looked the other way by giving greater prominence to an exchange of letters between Xi and a Belgian zookeeper discussing pandas.

So big brother is standing by small in his moment of greatest need, although we don’t know what price Beijing will extract for its fraternal comradeship. “The China-Russia relationship will remain critical strategically, financially, economically,” concludes Tesch, “but I think Putin will struggle to assert himself.”

Peter Hartcher is international editor.

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