China, Ukraine and the dilemmas of defining sovereignty

Regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China is conveying to the West a narrative of “responsible neutrality”: not aggravating the crisis, not fuelling the Russian or Ukrainian war machine, nor taking part in hostilities. However, beyond the official rhetoric, China’s actions have in fact reflected a pro-Russian leaning that is not politically accepted but is becoming increasingly visible. At the root of this contradiction between rhetoric and action lies China’s definition of sovereignty, and what it means for its conception of international relations.

Xi Jinping did not fail to be present at the BRICS summit in Kazan in October 2024. However, China’s absence from the peace conference organised by Ukraine in Switzerland in June 2024 did not go unnoticed either. Has China chosen sides? No official Chinese statement attests to this; in his speech at the Kazan summit, the Chinese President simply reiterated the principles that have structured China’s official position on the Ukrainian conflict since 2022: “not to widen the battlefield, not to contribute to the intensification of hostilities, not to fan the flames and to strive for a rapid de-escalation of the Ukrainian crisis“. Translating these words into deeds runs up against the reality of what China has done since 2022.

Institutional neutrality versus media bias

From 4 to 20 February 2022, the 2022 Winter Olympics take place in Beijing, China. Vladimir Putin attended the opening ceremony alongside Xi Jinping, and at the end of the ceremony the two leaders published a lengthy “joint declaration on the entry of international affairs into a new era“. In it, Beijing and Moscow set out their convergent views on global governance and the need for a “multipolar” world. And the invasion began on February 24^th.

The first official Chinese statements on the subject were extremely cautious, and China initially refused to condemn the invasion, saying it “understood Russia’s security concerns”. On 25 February 2022, China abstained from a United Nations Security Council vote denouncing the invasion, as did the United Arab Emirates and India. On 2 March 2022, China also abstained on a resolution “demanding that Russia immediately cease the use of force against Ukraine“. China was officially trying to remain neutral.

Conversely, the pro-Russian bias is immediately obvious in the Chinese media. In almost all the English-language Global Times articles preceding the invasion of Ukraine, Russian manoeuvres and intentions were never questioned, and the tone was clearly and exclusively anti-American. For example, on 13 February 2022: “US needs Ukraine crisis to harm European economy, and legitimize its military presence”, again on 13 February 2022: “Instigating Ukraine crisis serves US interests, offers lesson for Taiwan island“, on 16 February 2022: “GT Voice: US’ warmongering in Ukraine is only for wartime profiteering“, on 22 February 2022, “US takes Europe ‘hostage’ in Ukraine crisis“, on 24 February 2022: “Biz Quick Take: Why China firmly opposes economic sanctions against Russia”.

Even more significantly, the articles that followed the outbreak of the war repeated the entire Russian narrative on the origins of the war. For example, on 25 February 2022: “Russia to create a turning point since disintegration of USSR“, and again on 25 February 2022: “US’ real strategic colour of selfishness, hypocrisy revealed in Ukraine crisis: Global Times editorial”. In the Chinese media, there is absolutely no ambiguity about Chinese support for Russia. Given the tight control exercised by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the state media, including the English-language media, this freedom of tone and editorial bias speak volumes about the reality of the Chinese position from the very first days of the war.

Discreet but very real support for Russia from China

What was visible in the Chinese media as early as 2022 found concrete expression in 2023 at least: China is indeed materially supporting Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. In the course of 2023, Ukraine began to identify an increasing number of Chinese components among the Russian missile debris, which it analysed after impact. China also supplied large quantities of construction equipment that would enable Russia to fortify the famous “Surovikin Line” in record time. In July 2023, a Washington Post investigation revealed that bans on Chinese exports to Russia (drones in particular) had been circumvented thanks to several Central Asian states. More worryingly, in April 2024, the combined work of Reuters and the think-tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) revealed that China was involved in supplying Russia with North Korean munitions, in violation of several UN resolutions. In September 2024, it was discovered that China was hosting a drone manufacturing plant for military use on its soil, and the matter was clarified in November 2024.

Why this deliberate stealth support?

China’s actions seem to lend credence to the theory that it is supporting Russia sufficiently to prevent the latter from collapsing, but without taking the risk of Western economic retaliation. These are only hypotheses, but the Russian invasion of Ukraine may present several favourable opportunities for China.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine serves first and foremost the Chinese narrative of “multipolarity“, understood as the sharing of the world stage between superpowers considered to be equal, namely above all China and the United States, with Europe and Russia playing in the “second division”. In this respect, China has invested heavily in all the international bodies that enable it to assert its role and rank on the international stage. China intends above all to assert its status as a “regional superpower” in the Asia-Pacific zone, but a more exclusive status, in its “sphere of influence” considered as a reserved zone, which the United States is unlikely to accept. However, pragmatically speaking, the Chinese position could quite legitimately be likened to a Monroe Doctrine extended to China in the Indo-Pacific zone.

This invasion also allows China to test Western resolve in the event of similar action towards Taiwan, although no hasty conclusions should be drawn about the US commitment, especially since the re-election of Donald Trump. As far as China is concerned, Western economic sanctions have probably been analysed in great detail in the event of China becoming a target. But on a more strictly military level, the Russian offensive disperses American military efforts towards Europe and concentrates European military efforts on the Old Continent. Given the small size of most of Europe’s armies, the continued existence of a “Russian threat” in the East makes it unlikely that there will be any expeditionary efforts European to support the United States in the face of a possible Chinese offensive towards Taiwan.

While this approach to the conflict in Ukraine allows China to envisage scenarios favourable to its interests, whatever the outcome, it has the disadvantage of diminishing the “capital of trust” that China enjoys in international relations, in particular because China seems to have a variable-geometry notion of sovereignty. If China is still ambiguous, it is probably about the exact perimeter of what it means by “sovereignty”.

What is China’s concept of sovereignty?

In the early 2000s, in the wake of the geopolitical events surrounding Kosovo, the question of sovereignty for China was, on the face of it, fairly straightforward: sovereignty is the absolute right of states to govern within their territory. This fairly common definition of sovereignty is based on political independence, respect for territorial integrity and non-interference by third countries in internal affairs, principles dating back to the 1950s and known as the “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence“. The subtleties of this position came to light later, during China’s period of “economic and political emergence” at the turn of the century (2005-2010), at the same time as the US leadership was strongly challenged internationally following the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Chinese sovereignty is now understood to mean the right to control territories and areas claimed as “belonging” to China: Taiwan, of course, but also several reefs in the South China Sea that China has since transformed into fortified places.

Applied to Ukraine, the precise question of sovereignty seems more complex in China, and has given rise to a certain cacophony among Chinese officials in the past. This was the case in April 2023, when the Chinese ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, said in an interview on the LCI channel that Ukraine, like other former Soviet states, did not have all the attributes of sovereignty and was therefore not an independent state under international law. In particular, it denied Ukraine the right to claim Crimea as part of its territory. This outburst, which scandalised European chancelleries in particular, earned him a clarification from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, which quickly countered these statements: Ukraine is indeed a sovereign state, whose territorial integrity must therefore be respected.

But it should be noted that, in strictly formal terms, the reference to this principle in relation to Ukraine is never explicit in official texts, as if the two subjects had to maintain a certain textual distance. This was notably the case in the Chinese peace plan of February 2023. So, Lu Shaye’s statement does not come out of the blue: Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are clearly embarrassing issues, and it is likely that this view of the subject is shared by some in Beijing.

What does this mean? Is China, like Russia, practising a permanent double standard, with a clear difference between what China says and what China does, depending on the circumstances? Things are probably more subtle. It remains a hypothesis, but it is possible that China unofficially links the notion of sovereignty to a state’s ability to exercise sovereignty over a given territory. In the specific case of Ukraine, this would be tantamount to considering that a state is not sovereign over territories that it does not have the capacity to defend. The corollary of this hypothesis, which is far more problematic for the Western conception of international order, would be that a state can become sovereign over territories that it can seize and defend. This hypothesis would make it possible to find consistency in official Chinese declarations, which would implicitly recognise both Ukrainian sovereignty over the territories it retains and defends, and Russian sovereignty over the occupied territories, from Crimea to the Donbass. It is also consistent with China’s preference for a rules-based international order (which is changing thanks to Russia) rather than a law-based international order, as international law is seen in China as a Western intellectual construct.

It is much easier for China to break certain rules (such as burying the “one country, two systems” promise, made at the time of the handover of Hong Kong) than to break the law. This is also the interpretation that can be made of China’s actions in the South China Sea: the PRC is claiming sovereignty over territories and areas that no neighbouring country can really contest. Force and “fait accompli” policy seem to take precedence over the law in China’s conception of its sovereignty over the territories in question.

It is highly likely that China will analyse its options for action against Taiwan in the light of what is happening in Ukraine, even if the two issues are very different, particularly for the United States. Some of China’s intentions will depend on the US, and therefore on the Trump administration: while the various US administrations have tended to make common cause around the threat from China, the first few weeks of the Trump administration seem to have spared China for the time being. While the issue of economic sanctions is clearly a brake on China’s desire to take action, the relative laissez-faire attitude of the West in Ukraine, combined with the revelation of a collective military weakness and American isolationist temptations, could lead China to try its hand at military action in the short term, bearing in mind that China is in the process of acquiring specific military resources for this purpose. In any case, China’s attitude to the conflict, with its vacillation over the real sovereignty of Ukraine and its support for Moscow, is a very bad sign.