Did China know about the Russian invasion of Ukraine? – Corriere.it

From our correspondent in Beijing
He had a far vision, the CIA, in this crisis.

For weeks he had noticed it The Concentration of the Russian forces On the border with Ukraine it was too huge to hold a simple demonstration It was preceded by a large-scale invasion.

trying to push Xi Jinping To advise his friend not to take risks at the last minute Russian President Vladimir PutinPreviously At the end of November, the Americans had surrendered The Chinese Ambassador in Washington Information on military preparations From the Russians (according to American sources, the Chinese instead transferred the file to Moscow, denouncing the destabilizing maneuvers of the common opponent).

Now, a new intelligence report It was revealed by the New York Times claim that China was (at least partially) aware of Putin’s plans And the He just asked to postpone the operation Russian for Banning her from synchronizing the Beijing Olympics (February 4-20)..

According to this reconstruction, information about the Chinese delay maneuver was collected by the intelligence services of a Western (presumably European) country and considered credible by Washington.

If Beijing asked Moscow to delay the invasion, this meant that the Russians had informed the Chinese allies of their plan. Thus, even knowing that Putin was preparing to sabotage the world order with military action in Europe, Xi Jinping decided to host him in Beijing on the opening day of the Olympic Games, February 4, and sign with him. More than five thousand words to express that the alliance between China and Russia has no limits.

The New York Times sent an email commentary from the Chinese Embassy in Washington. The response was: These allegations are baseless speculationWith the aim of directing blame and tarnishing the image of China.

So far, many clues have led you to believe it In fact, even Beijing was surprised by the large-scale Russian attack. On February 24, the day of the attack, a foreign spokesman for Beijing said: We have noticed that today Moscow announced the start of a special operation in Ukraine. The Russian Defense Minister said that his army will not use missiles, artillery and air strikes on cities. The spokesperson refused to describe the operation as an invasion. maybe because The Chinese still delude themselves that this was not a large-scale but a limited invasion.

Until the week before the invasion, a conference entitled A War Not to Be Waged was held in Shanghai, and speaker Shen Yi, a distinguished political scientist at Fudan University, ridiculed the American ultimatums by saying: Sleepy Joe uses poor quality intelligence on Ukraine and Russia (Sleepy Joe the way Donald Trump described Biden on the campaign trail.) When the Russians entered Ukraine, Professor Shen Yi admitted on his Weibo account that he was wrong.

Another respected commentator, Jin Kanrong of Renmin University in Beijing, is also clearly wrong, saying on state TV: Not a single Chinese expert has swallowed the American alarm. The list of skeptical statements by Chinese academics is long: Of course, only those who do not make predictions are at all mistaken. And behind those claims, made by scholars who are civil servants anyway, there may have been a political-diplomatic tradition ordered by the party state.

The fact is that US intelligence made only one mistake in this crisis: it received information about the date of the Russian aggression, set for February 16. There was a delay of a week and seven days. Operations of this nature are logistically expensive, because Keeping tens of thousands of soldiers and vehicles in stationary war equipment on Ukraine’s borders surely damaged the machine, wasting resources.

Why wait if Putin has already decided? The answer according to American reconstruction is that Xi Jinping was going to ask his friend to postpone the pledgeSo as not to disturb the Olympic truce and not spoil the Beijing Winter Games.

on the principle, Washington accuses Beijing of not using its political and economic power to dissuade its ally Russia.

but maybe, Americans overestimate China’s influence on PutinThey relied heavily on Xi Jinping’s ability to think of a smaller client like North Korean Kim Jong-un.

Sure, the Chinese president isn’t happy with North Korean nuclear bombs on the border, which gives Americans one more reason to be forcefully in China’s backyard, but he failed to get Kim to disarm.

Of course, it can be argued that Putin’s adventures in Ukraine could take American pressure away from Southeast Asia as well. Giving Beijing a strategic advantage, at least in the short term. But this is important for political scientists (who may err in predictions, such as Professors Fudan and Renmin).