The Independent: Why the Chinese president secretly hates and fears Russia?
China expert Michael Sheridan wrote in The Independent online asking, Why Xi secretly hates and fears Russia, and may be on the verge of betraying Putin?
The bear and the dragon can never be friends, Sheridan wrote… That’s a lesson Xi Jinping learned at an early age, and it explains why the Chinese leader’s no-limits partnership with Vladimir Putin could turn into a no-limits liability—for the Kremlin.
A recently declassified US document, he adds, revealed that the man who was Xi’s mentor and coach in his first job, at the heart of the Chinese military establishment, was staunchly anti-Russian, advising his staff never to trust Moscow.
The document, according to the article, is a White House cable detailing how Xi’s mentor, Chinese defense chief Geng Biao, “gave the Americans the most complete account we have received to date of the Sino-Soviet split”.
Sheridan explains that although both leaders boast about their two-year-old alliance and their desire to see Western-led democracies plunge into chaos and turmoil, behind all the mutual admiration lie deep fissures of history, ethnicity and power.
The document shows that Geng made clear to US President Jimmy Carter during a visit to the White House in 1980 that China’s only friend in the Kremlin was Stalin, but after his death, the Soviets claimed influence over most of northern China and stationed troops on Chinese soil.
Worst of all, Geng said, the Russians wanted to keep China as a poor, backward warehouse for the socialist bloc, and that there was no need for industry because the Soviet Union would supply them with whatever machinery they needed.
His country, he added, “was always an agricultural society and would forever remain a Soviet satellite”.
But China didn’t listen to what the Soviets wanted and continued its economic renaissance.
Xi, the heir to China’s economic and military giant, continued the mission when he took office and China reached its current economic power during his reign.
Despite the Sino-Russian alliance, China officially recognizes Ukraine as a state and the Zelensky government as its legitimate ruler.
According to Sheridan, the stark contradiction cannot continue for long, and President Xi cannot waste decades of peaceful prosperity by gambling on Putin’s war.
