by Alexander Mercouris
"OFFICIAL - CHINA RECOGNISES CRIMEAN REFERENDUM"
This is the clear meaning of the statement TASS reports that a senior official of the Chinese Foreign Ministry has made.
The
fact that China recognises the Crimean referendum means that de facto
(and surely before long de jure) China has recognised Crimea's
unification with Russia. Note also that the official has expressed
support for Russia's Ukrainian policy.
This
is the clearest statement from an official source (as opposed to the
news media) of China's position viz the Ukrainian crisis that China has
made to date. Because it is made by an official rather than a minister
it has gone almost unnoticed. However that is how China works:
statements of this sort are first floated in the media, then made
formally but at a relatively low level, following which they become
uncontested policy. Suffice to say that it is inconceivable that the
official in question would have spoken out in this way without clearance
from the very highest levels of the Chinese government and the fact
that in his conversation to TASS he actually quotes comments made by Xi
Jinping in telephone conversations with Putin puts that question beyond
doubt.
I have always felt that the Chinese
dimension in influencing Russia's Ukrainian policy is consistently
underestimated. I am sure that every single step Moscow has taken since
the start of the Ukrainian crisis has been discussed and coordinated
with Beijing at the highest possible level. We should not make the
mistake of thinking that the only conversations between Putin and Xi
Jinping are those that are officially or publicly reported. The
Chinese do not want to be seen taking an active or public role in the
Ukrainian crisis - which formally speaking has nothing to do with them -
but given the importance of China's support for Russia and the
importance of Russia to China, it is a certainty that the two sides have
been working closely together with each other and that they are
discussing every aspect of this crisis all the time. Knowledge that he
has China's support is one reason for Putin's confidence in his dealings
with the US and the Europeans.
The need to
coordinate with Beijing does however place certain constraints on
Moscow's actions. Again I am sure that one reason amongst many why
Russia has been wary of intervening actively in the Donbas or of
formally recognising the various votes there is because it knows that
doing so too obviously or too hastily would not be welcome in Beijing.
China
is traditionally very wary of independence declarations (a policy
restated with specific reference to the Ukraine by the official quoted
by TASS) not because it is worried about Xinjiang or Tibet (where the
situation is fully under control) as the west alleges but because it
does not want to create a precedent for Taiwan.
Again
I do not think many people especially in the west but also in Russia
understand what a sensitive issue for China Taiwan is. Suffice to say
that a key reason for the Sino Soviet split of the 1960s was precisely
Mao Zedong's anger at what he correctly saw as a lack of support from
Moscow over Taiwan.
That does not mean
Novorossian independence will not happen or that either the Russians or
indeed the Chinese are reconciled to the results of the Maidan coup or
to the survival of the present regime in Kiev. Both countries perceive
the sort of staged US backed "revolutions" that the Maidan coup was, as a
direct challenge and threat to themselves. Both countries are almost
certainly agreed that the results of the coup in a key Eurasian state
must be reversed. Note how the official, in the clearest possible sign
that he is speaking on behalf of the Chinese government, quotes a
previously unreported but very revealing remark Xi Jinping said to Putin
in one of their telephone conversations, that "there is no smoke
without fire". No guesses who or what that refers to.
However
the joint policy of reversing the effects of the Maidan coup is going
to be done incrementally, step by step, for many reasons of which
China's concerns about Taiwan are just one.
Anyway,
to those who think there is some division between Beijing and Moscow
both over the Crimean issue and over the Ukrainian crisis generally,
this statement from an official of the Chinese government should finally
and once and for all put that question to rest: there is none.
