SI-factor. Vladimir Milov about why China will not help Putin win

Despite China’s refusal to provide Russia with large -scale military assistance, from there, components for weapons, in particular, the microcircuits necessary for the war, are massively received . And although the Kremlin love to call Beijing an ally, even system politicians admit: cooperation with China is more profitable for himself than Russia, and the situation is aggravated every day. Xi Jinping needs that the Putin regime does not collapse and continue to “bite” the West, Vladimir Milov believes, but China is not at all interested in strengthening Russia and certainly does not intend to be its donor.

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The scale of Chinese assistance in Russia should not be overestimated. Contrary to the urgent need for Putin, China did not supply Russia with weapons and ammunition for use at the front - and this is what Putin wanted most of all. A lot of secondary products are supplied, which is also important to maintain the capabilities of Russia to wage war, but all this is not able to ensure a fracture on the battlefield. Thus, China somehow does not cross certain “red lines”, abandoning the official supplies of weapons, against which the West warned Beijing.

As for the economy, everything is not so simple here too. In fact, the only thing China does today is replacing the lost Western goods with its own. But, firstly, he does it with a huge bonus. For example, Chinese cars in the Russian market are twice as much as in China, and the Novatek gas company was forced to increase the cost of the Arctic LNG-2 project by almost $ 4 billion due to the replacement of American Baker Hughes with Chinese Harbin Guanghan.

As a result, Chinese exports to Russia already, according to the results of 11 months of 2023, exceeded $ 100 billion and is not far behind Russian exports to China-last year the Russian-Chinese trade balance has declined sharply. At the same time, China imports from Russia mainly raw materials and products of the first redistribution, preferring to seek large -scale discounts from Russian raw materials exporters (we will talk about this in detail separately in the future), and Russia supplies ready -made complex products. With such trends, the moment is not the moment when the balance of the trade in Russia with China will become negative for us - that is, for the PRC, the emerging model of trade becomes obviously more profitable.

China imports from Russia mainly raw materials, and sells ready -made complex products

Further, China, unlike Western countries, is not ready to become a technological donor for the development of Russian industry and is not interested in seeing Russia as a competitor in the manufacturing market. This is what the mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin had recently, when he announced that the countries of the East were “waging a real economic war against Russia”, not wanting to supply us with components and technologies for the development of their own production. In similar tones, the first Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov spoke In the New Year's interview "Kommersant":

“We must clearly understand that no one awaits us in the markets of friendly countries. These markets are occupied either by the goods of friendly countries themselves, or their competitors - the same European goods ... Now there are no Russian goods in China, there is no in India, not in Vietnam. ”

Belousov hopes that Russian goods in these markets will appear, but this is an illusion. It is especially funny to listen to the arguments of Russian officials about the mass entry of our goods to the Chinese market amid a slowdown in the Chinese economy - when space is compressed for their Chinese goods. You think that under these conditions, the leadership of China will be concerned about to clear the space for Russian goods of unknown quality and competitiveness in its domestic market? .. Well, how much does China value Russia as a partner in high -tech projects, can be judged by last year's plot about how Moscow simply was thrown out of the project of a joint wide -body aircraft CR929, over which ten years before depicted "joint work."

Contrary to the hopes of the Russian authorities, China is not going to invest in Russia at all. At the time of the full -scale invasion of Ukraine, the accumulated direct Chinese investments in the Russian economy, according to the Bank of Russia, barely exceeded $ 3 billion - the percentage of our GDP. Moreover, these are mainly investments in only two projects “Novateka”-“Yamal LNG” and “Arctic LNG-2”, which are almost completely exempted from taxes to the Russian budget, work largely on Chinese equipment and are designed to export cheap liquefied natural gas to China.

Over the past two years, 0 (zero!) Inputs of Chinese investors to the Russian market have happened, and none of them are going here. Despite the long years of playing the performance of partnership, according to the Minister of Development of the Far East and the Arctic Alexei Chekunkov, “the public part of our relations with China was ahead of their practical performance - if you recount those projects in Russia, where large Chinese investors actually participated, there are enough fingers of one hand.”

Over the past two years, 0 (zero!) Inputs of Chinese investors to the Russian market have

At the same time, Russian bankers admit that Chinese banks, even ready to work bypassing Western sanctions, are still so focused on Western financial markets that they simply will not contact Russian banks that do not have access to SWIFT. “The Chinese banking system, especially the use of yuan in cross -border payments, is very dependent on SWIFT - the entire payment infrastructure is sharpened for SWIFT, they honestly admitted. And if the Russian bank is disconnected from SWIFT for sanction or unauthorized reasons, then, accordingly, it ceases to have access to cross-border payments via Bank of China, ”complained Rosbank Vice President Alexander Rachmanin.

Here is such a "partnership." Over the past two years, it became obvious that China is not interested in the development of Russia as a competitor in the market of high -tech goods, does not want to invest in our country, but wants to receive only raw materials from us with a discount, in exchange for a good bonus from the replacement of Western goods in the Russian market.

Nevertheless, it cannot be said that China is not at all ready to help Russia: Putin is important to Xi Jinping as a player who helps to weaken the position of the West. However, two clear principles are traced here. First: China is not involved in anything, which threatens with serious risks, and does not give control levers. This applies to investment in Russia and the supply of weapons: risks in both cases are significant, and the possibilities of monitoring the result of Beijing are limited. For example, having put a lethal weapon to Russia, China will take on a serious responsibility for aggression against Ukraine, but will not be able to manage the conduct of military operations - the minuses and risks are materialized, but the fact that Putin with Chinese weapons will be able to win, to put it mildly, is not guaranteed.

Having set a lethal weapon to Russia, China will take on a serious responsibility, but will not receive guarantees of victory

The second principle: China is not ready to be a draw of a donor and is invested only in what brings him benefits. Therefore, the expansion of trade on the principle of “cheap raw materials in exchange for Chinese goods with a bonus” works, and there is no investment or technological cooperation.

The Russian ruling nomenclature, which has been fighting today in a public anti-Western fulf, has a difficult awareness of the fact that the West, starting in the 1980s, has been the donor of Russia in fact-no matter how we refused to recognize this-in a wide range of development factors: capital, technology, knowledge. China is not going to be such a donor: he is only interested in the minimum maintenance of the Putin regime afloat, without the possibilities of strengthening and development and with maximum benefit for itself.

The West since the 80s was the donor of Russia, and China is not going to be for them

The same applies to the military sphere. Over the past two years, it became clear that Beijing was not ready to get involved in the military support of Putin: this is fraught with a serious exacerbation of relations with the West and, possibly, serious sanctions. In the conditions of an unprecedented slowdown in the Chinese economy, this is that Xi Jinping is least necessary. Therefore, China is trying to somehow support Moscow partners with a secondary measure, from the responsibility of which you can easily jump off on occasion: they say that it is some private companies that supply some drones there, and we believed that it was for civilian purposes.

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Of course, all this also helps Putin, and the West is concerned about this - therefore, the sanctions for supporting the Putin army and military industry are also imposed against Chinese companies. Whether this action will take the effect and whether it is worth waiting for the escalation of secondary sanctions - the question is open, but for China it is fundamentally important to show the West that he pursues an independent policy, is ready not to cross some “red lines”, but there will be no completely “bend” under sanction pressure. In addition, the supplies of Russia of military products are profitable. Therefore, most likely, it is worth waiting for the game in the “cat mouse”: inventions of various kinds of schemes with the participation of fake companies and so on, but the supply of dual-purpose products will most likely continue. Chinese manufacturers of this kind of product are often less dependent on international markets, so the possibilities to influence their behavior through sanctions are limited.

Is a new escalation of the American-Chinese confrontation possible, including in connection with the ongoing supplies of military products for Russia or the hypothetical return to the White House of Donald Trump? Here we must take into account this: During the trade and economic confrontation of China and the USA in recent years, the scale of the interaction of the two economies has sharply decreased: the share of Chinese goods in American imports in the first half of 2023 decreased to 13.3%, which is almost half the peak value of 2017-21.6%. This trend will continue without Trump: many companies have already realized that the placement of industries in China with an orientation to the American market is fraught with risks, and they transfer production to other countries.

On the one hand, all these factors make a significant contribution to the observed slowdown in the Chinese economy: China loses the American market, loses investors. On the other hand, in paradoxically, the United States loses the lever of influence on China’s policy: in terms of trade there, there will soon be nothing to reduce. It must be understood that the relatively easy potential for the reduction of Chinese import by America has already been chosen, and further trade barriers will be more painful in the American economy than before. As for Trump, although it is difficult to make forecasts, but, as it seems, in the case of its election, two factors will be decisive. First: Trump will be focused on domestic politics, consolidation of power and political revenge to everyone who offended him in the last four years, he will not be a little to China. The second: the goal of stopping Putin and the war for him will not be a priority - it is quite clear that Trump does not care about Ukraine, and in Putin he sees a strong potential, if not a partner, then a counterparty (and, apparently, this is mutually).

Trump in case of victory will not be a little to China

Yes, the hawk -ups about China, heated by almost universal anti -Chinese consensus in the American establishment, will be. But restrictions will be the interests of large businesses that will lose from the exacerbation of trade wars, and the low level of Trump's interest in the war in Ukraine. However, Trump seems to have passed his peak of popularity, and his victory now no longer looks as probable as a few months ago - but this is a topic for a separate conversation.

Given all these circumstances, it seems that the task of blocking the channel of supply to Russia of dual -use from China will be difficult. They will try, but the levers of pressure are less and less, and China leads and continues to behave quite vainly - while certain “red lines” do not pass. It would be much more productive for the West today to concentrate efforts on blocking the supply channels of potential military products from other countries. As we know, quite a lot of it continues to be supplied even from the EU countries , there are more opportunities to influence the countries of Central Asia, the Middle East, Turkey. China in this regard remains a relatively strong nut.

However, do not forget about the main thing: today's model of Russian-Chinese relations as a whole does not allow Russia to “take off”. China provides Putin only in the “minimum life support” mode and with great benefit for himself, rather taking away the resources from Putin (which he could otherwise use for war) than being his donor. Beijing is interested in the Putin regime to remain and continue to “bite” the West, but is not at all interested in strengthening and strengthening. China is not able to and does not want to help Putin decisively win the war, nor prevent the development of crisis in the Putin system. Therefore, the Chinese factor of Putin’s support is important, but not enough to determine the further course of history.

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