As Vladimir Putin reels from the biggest threat to his grip on power in years, his counterpart in Beijing will be considering the impact on the balance sheet of his support for the Russian president.
The Wagner group’s mutiny, in which troops led by Yevgeny Prigozhin came within a few hundred kilometres of Moscow, has exposed divisions in Russia’s armed forces and cracks that threaten to undermine the stability of China’s most powerful ally.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Xi Jinping, China’s president, has been unwavering in his support for his “dear friend” Putin. Although Xi has not explicitly endorsed Russia’s invasion, he has refused to condemn it and has echoed many of its justifications for the war. In a position paper published in February, Xi criticised “expanding military blocs”, an implicit reference to Nato, which Putin blames for provoking his “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Beijing’s support for Moscow is based on pragmatism and ideology. It is the former that has been most damaged by the weekend’s dramatic events, which China has sought to downplay.
Having initially made no comment, on Sunday, China’s foreign ministry described the rebellion as Russia’s “internal affairs” and expressed its support for Russia in maintaining national stability.
On Sunday, the Xinhua Chinese state news agency published an article suggesting that Prigozhin had backed down because Russian public opinion was overwhelmingly against him. China Daily published a report from Moscow’s Red Square that said “the daily life of Moscow residents has not been disrupted and remains calm and orderly”.
But many in China are not convinced. Yu Jianrong, an influential liberal scholar, posted a video of Russian locals reacting angrily to police moving into Rostov-on-Don, a city that had been captured by the Wagner group, suggesting there was some level of support for their cause. “I really don’t know what’s going on in this country,” Yu wrote to his more than 7 million Weibo followers.
Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based international relations scholar, said the Wagner incident would lead to Russia’s increased dependence on China, while Beijing would take “a more cautious stance on Russia”. “Diplomatically, China needs to be careful with its words and deeds,” Shen said.
Others argue that Xi may be impressed by Putin’s handling of the insurrection. “The way that China might be looking at it is that Putin has proved to elites that he can handle enormous challenges to the country,” said Alexander Korolev, a senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, who focuses on China-Russia relations. “I don’t think that the Chinese government has jumped to the conclusion that there are big cracks to Putin’s regime,” Korolev said.
Still, Xi now has to balance continuing support for Putin with hedging for the possibility that his time in the Kremlin could be cut short. One aspect where this dilemma will be felt most immediately is in intelligence-sharing. Prigozhin’s swift advance on Moscow suggests the tacit support of some figures within Russia’s military and intelligence community. That means China’s contacts with Russia’s secret services are potentially vulnerable.
As Joseph Webster, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, has noted: “If Chinese security services share intelligence with their Russian counterparts on anti-Putin coup plotters, they face a high probability of discovery and risk long-term damage to bilateral relations if an ‘anti-Putin’ ascends to the power vertical in Russian politics.”
The Chinese government will welcome the fact that a deal with Prigozhin was swiftly brokered. Putin is an important partner and backs China’s position on the world stage, especially Beijing’s appeal to the global south to resist what it describes as US-led hegemony. Xi’s public support for Putin is unwavering.
However, China is increasingly worried about stability in Russia, said Alexander Gabuev, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre. “Their problem is they don’t have real tools to impact it.”
The spectre of another leadership challenge to Putin will unnerve Xi. Analysts are divided on whether he would attempt to intervene in Russia’s domestic politics to keep a pro-Beijing leader in power, as any intervention could risk damaging relations with a potential successor.
