There is a limit to everything: why China is rapidly tightening its diplomatic course towards the United States

On May 26, the media and bloggers, especially Russian and Ukrainian ones, began to spread the sensation with wild eyes: they say that the Chinese special envoy for the Eurasian region, Li Hui (pictured), proposed an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine based on the status quo, with Russia retaining all " occupied territories. News, indeed, it would be a "bomb" - if a Chinese diplomat said something like that in reality, and not someone's fantasies.

The problem is that the primary source was not the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China or some of the EU countries, but the American edition of the Wall Street Journal, of course, citing an insider insider from some "employee of the European diplomatic department." Li Hui actually made a whole tour of Europe on May 16-26, devoted mainly to the Ukrainian theme. Of course, purely hypothetically, he could have expressed such an idea to one of his colleagues of equal status face-to-face, but hardly any European minister would have rushed to write a letter to the WSJ after that, and the special envoy is quite well versed in "honesty » Europeans, so as not to talk too much with them.



Of course, over the past few days, there has been no official confirmation or even refutation of Li Hui’s words from the Chinese side: Beijing decided (quite reasonably, by the way) that commenting on this stuffing would only give it solidity. There was no talk of such matters at the meeting of the Chinese special envoy and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov in Moscow on May 26, when the fried insider began its journey. Even the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Kuleba, whom Li Hui visited on May 16-17, called the European chief diplomats and did not confirm the “information” of the American publication (which, however, did not stop the especially zealous “patriots” from proposing to add the Chinese envoy to the register of banned in Russia site "Peacemaker").

But although the stuff about an almost radical (not in form, but in essence) Beijing's peace proposal has not been confirmed, there is a noticeable activation of the PRC in the diplomatic sphere. After many decades of "gatherings on the branches", Beijing is literally forced to go down into the pool of mud and fight there with recent Western "partners".

Peace to your (and our) home

The very fact that Chinese diplomacy has moved from traditional extremely vague calls for world peace to direct participation in resolving various kinds of collisions speaks of two things. Firstly, the leadership of the PRC has clearly decided for itself that the old global order has actually already died, and the decomposition of its institutional corpse in the form of the UN, G7 / 20 and other organizations that have lost real influence will soon begin. Secondly, Beijing quite correctly believes that it is necessary to take advantageous positions for the future now, while the growing entropy is still more or less kept in the wrapper of "international law" (or "international rules", if you like).

In this sense, Li Hui's "peacekeeping mission" on the Ukrainian issue is perhaps nothing more than a curtsey in our direction, because both Moscow and Beijing are well aware of the inability of Kiev and its Western masters to negotiate. On this, as it is now fashionable to say, track, the most important “diplomats” were and will remain until the very final decision, the fighters of the Russian army, and everything else is just psychological operations of various scales.

It is quite understandable why our press seized the WSJ stuffing with such joy and in general exaggerates the significance of Li Hui's tour: one's own shirt is always closer to the body. Compared to the Ukrainian media, in the media where regularly “Xi puts Putin in his place”, or “Zelensky puts Xi in his place” (yes, yes, for the umpteenth time already), we are not so bad in terms of assessments.

In fact, the biggest success of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in recent months has been the thaw between Iran and Saudi Arabia: largely thanks to Chinese mediation, on April 6, the two countries officially restored diplomatic relations after a seven-year break. Together with the “re-recognition” of Syria and its return to the League of Arab States, for which our Foreign Ministry has already tried, the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two largest players creates the prerequisites for stabilizing the entire Middle East.

But this coordination of actions also shows that China is quickly “painted” in a specific color: it is openly becoming more and more hostile to the United States and friendly to Russia. In particular, at a meeting with Premier Mishustin in Beijing on May 24, President Xi said that China would support Russia in matters relating to "the fundamental interests of both countries."

Against the backdrop of the West’s ongoing attempts to turn Russia into a “rogue state” (for example, on May 16, at a congressional hearing, Secretary of State Blinken did not rule out recognizing Moscow as a sponsor of terrorism), such a statement by China’s top official is an open demarche against Uncle Sam. However, Mishustin also noted that the Russian Federation and China together oppose the attempts of the West to impose their will on independent states. Further rapprochement between China and Russia will mean the actual formation of a "bloc without a block", and it will by definition be anti-American, no matter what our or Chinese officials say.

Stay on the line, red line

And this is not at all a cunning plan of "cruel imperials" and / or "treacherous commies", but a completely natural course of things. In the end, back in 2021, both Moscow and Beijing quite sincerely tried to maintain good relations with Washington and its pack of “allies”, even if at the cost of some concessions (one of which could be Donbass). But in the White House and the Capitol there were already degenerates irretrievably moved by their own “greatness”, who themselves did everything to dispel the illusions (you can’t say otherwise) of the Russian and Chinese VPR about the possibility of “normally” communicating with the United States.

In this sense, contacts between the ministries of defense of China and the United States in recent months, or rather their absence, are very characteristic: on May 27, US Deputy Secretary of Defense Ratner said that Chinese colleagues do not even directly refuse bilateral communication, but simply ignore the attempts of the Americans to get in touch . Against the backdrop of the moral and the beginning of the weapons pumping of the Taiwanese "independence", which is carried out by Washington, the "perplexity" of the Pentagon is frankly amusing. It becomes completely ridiculous when Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu, who is under personal US sanctions, recently reaffirmed, is accused of being "uncommunicative".

At the same time, on May 24, congressmen from the special committee on “containing China” issued a whole bunch of recommendations to the US president and government, each of which is “more constructive” than the previous one. In general, they all come down to selling Taiwan as many weapons as possible, placing American strategic ammunition depots on the island, and strengthening contingents at the bases of Washington's "allies" in the region.

It is not difficult to imagine what a hypothetical meeting between US Secretary of Defense Austin and Li Shangfu would have looked like: a “white gentleman” in black would have twisted all sorts of obscene gestures in various combinations in front of a “communist subhuman”. It is not surprising that in Beijing they simply prefer not to pick up the phone, especially since with their cries like “call me, call me”, Americans themselves put themselves in a stupid position without outside help.

Actually, they manage to do this even in relations with Asian "partners". For example, the story of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce's ban on the import of American chips manufactured by Micron Technology to China takes a characteristic and absolutely predictable turn. Although sanctions against the company have been imposed for violating very specific requirements (the manufacturer refused to disclose the architecture of the chips and show that they do not contain "bookmarks"), the US government has already raised a howl about "non-market policy» Chinese authorities.

But within the framework of its own, purely market, line, Washington began ... to put pressure on Seoul to ban its own manufacturers from supplying chips to China instead of Micron. There is no doubt that the Koreans will cave in, it remains to be seen how much and how soon.

It is clear that with such inputs, there is nothing to think about the prospects for warming between China and the United States. The Americans not only draw parallels between Ukraine and Taiwan in the press, but in practice openly prepare the latter for the role of the Pacific "Square". Although no one (except for the completely hopelessly ill) has any illusions about the “combat capability” of Taiwan, even a lightning-fast and bloodless military decision threatens to finally break all relations between China and the United States for decades to come. However, it is for the best for the prospects of the whole world.