This makes me think of a quote attributed to Hitler (although I can’t find it on a quote site I really trust, and it doesn’t sound like him): :
The above was true of the Ukraine invasion, and it would be even more true of what would begin with use of a nuclear weapon.
The NATO nuclear powers (U.S., U.K., France) would have terrible alternatives. Allow the nuclear attack to succeed, and we are on the way to Churchill’s abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. But fight back, and step-by-step escalation seems likely. I haven’t read the books on nuclear strategy written in the 1950’s – perhaps one can find there some middle way, but no one knows if it will work.
As for the idea that all nuclear powers would rise as one to give Russia some supreme non-nuclear slap-down, that isn’t how Xi operates.
I am sure that China would not do well, even if they escaped nuclear destruction of most of their cities. Who would they sell their shit to, after Russia and the West finished roasting each other’s cities? Would Xi be really happy to be the last superpower presiding over a ruined and destroyed world?
No, but he wouldn’t be happy in a world made safe for liberal western values and democracy.
Also, he is unlikely to share the common western idea that nuclear escalation wouldn’t stop before the world is more ruined and destroyed than in past world wars.
Xi knows a lot about us. His daughter has a Harvard psychology degree. And he thinks his more regimented way of life, which arguably led to massive poverty reduction, is way better than ours. So if Xi does offer to join with the Western powers in an extreme slap-down of Russia, whether military or economic, he would only do it if he thought it was a step on the road towards China becoming the world’s dominant power.
The US and UK allied with the monster Stalin to defeat Hitler, but there was never any suggestion any of those parties were going to change their basic governance system as a result of that alliance. Everyone knew that after WWII they would go back to being adversaries. It was an alliance of convenience to deal with something that was a threat to all of them.
So NATO/EU could ally with China to defeat Russia if motivated to do so. The question is… does Xi view Russia as threatening? And if so, threatening enough to ally with the West? Or, conversely, does he view the West as such a threat?
Right now, Xi is trying to sit this one out. Which, to my mind, means that China thinks that neither side is a threat to China and they’re content to let their two biggest rivals bleed each other dry. They’ll deal with the winner and exploit the loser.
Would either side using nuclear weapons change that equation? I don’t know. And I don’t think anyone outside the Chinese government knows either.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto went to Harvard, too, lived in America and studied us. He knew a lot about the US and yet the Imperial Japanese government ignored what he had to say about attacking the US. How did that work out for Japan?
Xi’s daughter’s psychology degree and knowledge of the US may or may not be heeded by those in power. Sometimes the people at the top only hear what they want to hear and not what they should hear.
In its values? No. Is he afraid that Russia will attack him as Japan attacked China, or Germany attacked Russia? No again. Is he afraid that Russia will mess with his economy? Maybe, but western liberal values are more of a threat to his regime than slowing growth. And lastly, is he afraid Russia will trigger a nuclear winter? Don’t know, but doubt it.
Agreed.
Good example, but it is worse in this case because Harvard in 2014, when Xi Mingze graduated, was no hotbed of American patriotism. If she found us to be weak and superficial, as I expect, she brought back a dangerous message to China, and if she came back, from a parental POV, contaminated with western values, that would be worse.
Agreed that there is little concern about a direct military attack from Russia. And while Xi might be concerned about western liberal values gaining credence in his country he’s got stomping on that well under control.
Xi is about the economy. Russia has resources he wants and controls access to areas that want get to. Xi exerts influence on the rest of the world by China’s economic power, and is therefore also influenced and constrained by it. Much more so than Russia.
Russia’s economy doesn’t much matter to Xi. Actions that seriously threaten the economic health of the global marketplace do. A receding tide lowers all boats …
Xi may or may not believe that a limited nuclear conflict is possible. But he knows that best case would include economic impacts that would hurt China badly.
This is the key point. In allowing the rest of the developed world to impose sanctions but keeping China open to trade with Russia, Xi Jinping intends to get access to Russia’s resources (including those of the Ural and the Eurasian transcontinental regions) at bargain basement prices. Xi doesn’t give two shits about what one group of Slavs does to another, and the fact that this will tie up the NATO members from involving themselves in China’s Belt & Road Initiative, and divert interest and resources from AUKUS is just glazing on the mung bean cake.
But surely Xi has taken note about the effect of coordinated economic sanctions given over 3.3T dollars of investments. This might effect Chinese foreign policy with respect to Taiwan. At any rate, one might expect to see work on alternatives to Swift in the future.