China’s Ongoing Covid Crisis

As many as 37 million Chinese could have been infected with Covid-19 in a single day this week. China’s December total of Covid-19 infections now appears to stand at around 248 million people or 18% of China’s total population. The infected roughly make up a population the size of Indonesia. “The scale of infections and death, suggests that the virus has spread beyond major urban centers such as Beijing and Shanghai into the countryside… [and] presents a major challenge for China as its rural healthcare infrastructure is ill-prepared to handle a mass wave of infections. Yet, despite the serious nature of the pandemic, the Chinese government decided to lift restrictions for Chinese wishing to travel outside the country. It is seen by some analysts in the West as an attempt to level the playing field by reinfecting foreign populations around the world.

Re-weaponizing the virus is only one branch of China’s aggressive foreign policy. For the first time in the history of Russian-PRC relations Russian naval assets are expressly practicing implementation of a blockade together with their Chinese counterparts. The joint naval exercise was held from December 21-27 near islands off of Taiwan. The Global Times reports that “due to the background of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the fact that the military exercise area is the closest to Taiwan in the past 10 years, the misunderstandings and misinterpretations arising from this joint military exercise are more than in previous years. US and Western public opinion is watching the military cooperation between China and Russia with vigilance.”

The naval drills have carried express political implications, from the mock-blockade of Taiwan following Speaker Pelosi’s visit there to one of the largest assemblies of a Chinese carrier group shortly after Japan announced its new, more aggressive national security strategy, according to the Jamestown Foundation. “Joint Sea 2022” appears to be a reaffirmation of Russian support for China in any potential cross-strait conflict. As tensions increase, US Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith suggested that the implications of the military cooperation are far-reaching and that China and Russia are increasingly sharing a “toolkit of strategies to undermine NATO.”

A Global Times editorial published this week adds that “Some subjects of the exercise, such as anti-submarine and air defense, involve relatively sensitive data, reflecting the high strategic mutual trust and transparency between China and Russia, which will be further deepened and enhanced along with the exercise.” In addition to raising the two countries’ capabilities in maritime combat and joint operations, the exercise is a further indication that China is not turning inward nor is it backtracking on its aggressive stance in the East China Sea. The Russian Foreign Ministry defends the so-called “no limits” relationship between the two communist nations by labeling it as a “counterweight to the United States.”

Russia and China, according to The Hill, have engaged in multiple military drills since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine last February, including nuclear-capable bomber flights in May that took place during President Biden’s visit to Japan. A September joint exercise involved more than 2,000 Chinese troops, and the two countries in November flew bombers in joint patrols over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea. China and Russia are continuing to develop their mutually convenient friendship with the world as witness to drills that reflect a growing defense cooperation between the two countries. What is concerning to analysts is how far the cooperation will go in the coming year. Neither country has an extensive list of countries friendly to them or their causes. According to the Russian News Service TASS, Chinese President Xi Jinping is scheduled to speak with the Russian President before the end of the year. There is no indication that the relationship will change. Although China’s rise to power over the last few decades has skewed the relationship in Beijing’s favor, it still needs Moscow to distract the world from the CCP’s misadventures. Taken individually, each event cementing their bilateral relationship does not represent a new, more dangerous level of security threat to the world. In combination over time, however, the Russia-China relationship may end up destabilizing the free world and potentially lead to kinetic warfare in Asia, Central Asia, or Europe.

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.