Putin is squeezing every rouble he can out of the Russian state in pursuit of victory in Ukraine. Increasingly, his war-driven economy is propped up by support from China, with Russia fast becoming a proxy in Xi Jinping’s zero-sum contest with the West. Unless this reality is effectively addressed by the Western coalition, the free world risks first losing Ukraine, then Taiwan, and ultimately any hope of maintaining the current rules-based international order.

Russian President Vladimir Putin with Chinese President Xi Jinping

Crucially, no true strategic partnership exists between Beijing and Moscow. China has no intention of power sharing with a victorious Putin in a future post-US-led world.

But this is precisely what makes the current situation so dangerous. Backed by Beijing, protracting Putin’s war of attrition in Ukraine will not only weaken Russia, it will by degrees weaken and divide the Western coalition, and ease China’s path to supremacy over a new alliance based on authoritarian cronies and client states in the Global South.

It seems clear that China is now deliberately awarding Putin massive trade surplus subsidies, worth $38 billion in 2022, to fund his pointless and reckless Ukraine war. Russian oil and gas tax revenues in February 2024, at over $10 billion, were up 80 per cent from a year before. The IMF meanwhile has raised its forecast of Russian economic growth in 2024 from 1.1 per cent to 2.6 per cent.

Putin now can afford to direct 40 per cent of his 2024 budget, or 10 per cent of GDP, on military spending. Manpower is still available, in sufficient quantity to serve as expendable cannon fodder.

Manufacturing tanks and shells to devastate Ukraine is not productive output in any real economic sense, but in effect China is largely footing the bill. Xi Jinping’s efforts to revive the Chinese economy have been piecemeal and ineffective, and there is no real prospect for renewed growth that does not entail massive increases in energy consumption. Beijing is accordingly quite content buying fuel from a dependent Putin; the relationship is symbiotic.

Russia fires up to five times more shells at Ukrainian forces than vice versa, and is managing to produce more ammunition itself than Ukraine is receiving from its allies. Western production is falling behind, disrupted by the effects of Covid on the workforce and sourcing chains, unable to keep up with Ukraine’s needs.

Meanwhile, China colludes with Russia’s highly successful efforts to circumvent Western coalition sanctions on trade in materials needed in the battlefield, including some drones, missiles and sophisticated microchips, but also numerous basic components manufactured in the West, including the US.

These items, having been sold legitimately to third countries, are being trafficked into Russia across permeable customs barriers, including Kazakhstan’s, despite government assurances that Western sanctions regimes are fully supported there. A Norwegian consultancy estimates sanctions circumvention as having saved Moscow $8.5 billion in 2022.

It follows from all the above that what began as Putin’s war has by degrees become Xi Jinping’s. China has no need to risk Western sanctions by directly arming Putin’s legions. Solely by vicarious means, the Chinese Communist Party is turning this worsening geostrategic conflict to its unilateral advantage.

Disrupting coalition efforts to defend Ukraine advances the most cherished aims of the leadership in Beijing; annexing Taiwan, and hastening the end of the Western world order based on liberal values.

It is high time that we assessed, frankly and honestly, the existential threat that the PRC regime poses to global peace and prosperity.