Ukraine crisis: China, India tread carefully

2014-03-21

Analysis by Martin Sieff

The crisis in Ukraine has provoked a complex spectrum of reactions across Asia. India, which has strong and growing defense ties, has been supportive of Russia. China, Russia’s partner in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, has had a more complicated position.

China sat on the fence when the United Nations Security Council meeting in New York City deadlocked on a draft resolution on the crisis on March 15.

“China does not agree to a move of confrontation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang stated after the vote, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Russia used its veto power as one of the five UN Security Council Permanent Members to block the draft resolution, drawn up by the United States and backed by Western countries. That resolution stated the March 16 referendum organized by Russia on the status of the Crimea “can have no validity” and urged nations and international organizations not to recognize it.

“The vote on the draft resolution by the Security Council at this juncture will only result in confrontation and further complicate the situation, which is not in conformity with the common interests of both the people of Ukraine and those of the international community,” Qin said.

China always respected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, Qin said. This remains the long-standing fundamental foreign policy principle of the Beijing government.

“In the current situation, we call on all sides to remain calm and exercise restraint to avoid further escalation of the tensions,” Qin said.

“China holds an objective and fair position on the Ukraine issue,” Liu Jieyi, Chinese permanent representative to the UN, told the Security Council, according to Xinhua.

India: Russia has ‘legitimate interests’ in Ukraine

In contrast to China’s balancing act, the government of India has not hesitated to support Russia’s takeover of the Crimea.

“India believes Russia has ‘legitimate interests’ in Ukraine – a position that is opposed to the stand of the west on the latest crisis. Interestingly, China has opposed Russia’s intervention in Crimea, deviating from a long-standing support to Moscow in the UN Security Council,” The Times of India reported on March 8.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement March 13 expressing concern “at the subsequent escalation of tension, especially in view of the presence of more than 5,000 Indian nationals, including about 4,000 students, in different parts of Ukraine.”

“There are legitimate Russian and other interests involved and we hope they are discussed and resolved,” National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon told The Times of India.

China ‘triangulation’ seeks to avoid clash with U.S.

China’s careful approach to the crisis was determined by its continuing close trade and investment relationship with the United States, Ralph Winnie, director of the China program at the Eurasian Business Coalition, told Asia Pacific Defense Forum [APDF].

“President Xi [Jinping]’s government, like those that preceded it over the past 35 years, draws its ultimate legitimacy from its continued success in maintaining and raising China’s standard of living. Therefore continued stable global conditions for economic growth, the attraction of international investment and continued stable ties with the United States remain its abiding priority,” he said.

“The Chinese therefore genuinely want to see threatening international crises quickly and peacefully resolved and they also want to avoid any break with Russia just as they are determined to maintain good relations with the United States,” he told APDF.

This Chinese “triangulation” position to avoid any clash with Washington while avoiding any open break with Moscow is recognized across Asia.

Writing in the Malaysian newspaper The Star on March 16, Bunn Nagara, a senior fellow at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies [ISIS] Malaysia argued that it even overrode comparisons with China’s domestic national security concerns.

“Lopsided understanding has produced naïve hopes that China would weigh in on the US/EU side against Russia on the UN Security Council. The assumption is that Beijing would not want to see a part of China break away like Crimea,” Nagara wrote.

Beijing’s moderation revealed that “China’s ethos has changed,” analyst Rowan Callick wrote in The Australian on March 13.

“To a remarkably wide-ranging degree, China … is engaged economically, and even socially, with the world at large, through trade, study, mutual investment and cultural curiosity,” he wrote.

Callick identified the central dilemma for China in determining its position on Crimea and the Ukraine.

“The Ukraine move presents difficulties for Beijing, of course, because China has long and strenuously opposed all interventions in the domestic affairs of other countries, and an invasion would certainly appear to come into that category,” he wrote.

China is also concerned that if Russia feels emboldened by its takeover of Crimea, it might try to regain its old power and standing in the energy-rich former Soviet republics of Central Asia at Beijing’s expense, Callick warned.

“The largely landlocked ‘stans’ of Central Asia, most of which used to be Russian satellites, most recently via the Soviet Union, are mostly also heavily dependent on energy production.”

“Will the Crimea grab enhance the value of their output, or perhaps tempt Moscow to tighten its influence over them, in competition with Beijing?” he asked. “And might the unfolding of events in Ukraine inspire breakaway and nationalist elements in the ‘stans’ too, with Russia perhaps more willing to consider requests to answer pleas for help? There must be concerns.”