The parting words of
Xi Jinping to Vladimir Putin
were both ominous and momentous. “A change is coming that we haven’t seen in a
hundred years, and we’re driving this change together,” China’s premier told the Russian president as he ended his trip to Moscow. In the West,
the declarations of friendship provoked anxiety about a new, anti-Western
alliance, and what it might mean for the war in Ukraine. Yet the
consequences of Xi’s visit and the burgeoning Chinese-Russian alliance will be
felt first in Asia. In fact, a recalibration has already started.
اضافة اعلان
The very same day that Xi landed in Moscow, two
incidents occurred that offer a glimpse of what the future political alignments
in Asia will look like.
The first was the arrival of Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Kyiv. The second was an invitation, issued the same day
that Xi arrived, from Beijing to four
Central Asian states, inviting them to
the first Beijing-Central Asian summit.
Asian countries are recalibrating relations, preparing, not for a long war in Ukraine, but for what they fear could be a short peace in East Asia.
Together, they demonstrate how Asian countries are
recalibrating relations, preparing, not for a long war in Ukraine, but for what
they fear could be a short peace in East Asia.
Decisive Japanese movesWithin hours of Xi landing in
Moscow, Kishida arrived in Ukraine. The symbolism was deliberate: Two of Asia’s
biggest economies firmly planting their flags on opposite sides of this vast
European conflict. The Ukraine war is certainly not a global conflict, but it
has affected the politics of countries all across the world.
Although Japan has historically taken its
post-war pacifist constitution seriously,
the war in Ukraine has shaken an already unsteady — and many Japanese argue,
outdated — policy.
Tokyo’s response has differed little from that of Western
countries, as it has sanctioned Russian companies and sent surveillance drones
to Kyiv. Journalists have noted a litany of firsts: the first time Japan has
assisted a country during an armed conflict; the first time since World War II
that a Japanese leader has visited a country at war. But they add up to a strong
sense that Japan is shedding its pacifist history, accelerated by the Ukraine
war.
Kishida’s visit came on the heels of a summit in South Korea,
the first time a bilateral summit had been held in more than a decade. The
extraordinary declarations of friendship — Kishida called it “a new chapter” —
in some ways mirrored the Xi-Putin romance.
But it adds up to Japan appearing to be preparing
for a new chapter in East Asia — one in which Japan no longer prevaricates
about its friends, and draws them closer in the face of a new threat.
The war has gradually pushed the region away from Moscow — not immediately, and without great fanfare, but gradually, Central Asian countries have become more receptive to advances from other countries
That new threat hardly needs to be described. For
Japan, the war in Ukraine is not merely a pressing conflict, it is a glimpse of
a future. Just as Xi needs Russia to “win” so as to avoid
Taiwan thinking it
could possibly repel a Chinese military takeover, so Japan needs Russia to
lose, so that China will not be tempted into military action in East Asia.
Kishida has said as much publicly, telling a security summit in
June last year that “Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow”.
Central Asian responseOther countries in Asia are also
coming to a similar conclusion.
The war in Ukraine has tested the traditionally
close relationship between Moscow and the Central Asian countries, all former
members of the Soviet Union. First, there was collateral damage from the
invasion — the value of the rouble has tumbled, dragging down the value of remittances from
Central Asian workers inside Russia. There are millions of such workers in Russia,
and the economies of the five countries depend heavily on workers sending money
home.
But the war has gradually pushed the region away
from Moscow — not immediately, and without great fanfare, but gradually,
Central Asian countries have become more receptive to advances from other
countries, like the US, China, and Turkey.
No country better encapsulates the change
in relationship than
Kazakhstan, the richest of the five. Mere weeks before
Putin’s invasion, Russian troops were airlifted into Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, to help end widespread
protests and allow President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to regain control. A year
later, Tokayev welcomed the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the country for detailed talks, and
gathered politicians from the rest of Central Asia too.
The very geographical integrity of East Asia may rest on a war that is still very far away although its consequences are inching ever closer.
Part of the change is simply these states
capitalizing on a rare moment of leverage over Russia. But part of it, just
like with Japan, is anxiety at what their larger neighbors might do next. There
are millions of ethnic Russians in Central Asian states and it would be
conceivable that Moscow may seek to bite off chunks of their territory. If that
happened, there would be few to come to their assistance.
Bracing for the futureTaken together, a long-awaited rapprochement
between Japan and South Korea, the remilitarization of Japan, and the drifting
of Central Asia beyond Russia's orbit, herald long-term changes in Asia.
Few of these changes have come about simply because
of the Ukraine war, but the war has opened the minds of Asian politicians to
possibilities they had long thought impossible — exactly as it has done to
Western politicians. They have seen how European countries have been dragged
into the Ukraine war, and feel sure they will not escape the slipstream of
chaos should China seek to take back Taiwan.
That invasion will not happen this year, or perhaps
even this decade. But the
Ukraine war has focused minds in Asia on a very real
possibility, one that a Russian victory will likely bring closer. The very
geographical integrity of East Asia may rest on a war that is still very far
away although its consequences are inching ever closer.
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