Moscow continues to thunder impetuously completely regardless of even the mediation attempt initiated by Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet: any country dares to host Ukrainian military aircraft "will be involved in the conflict". The "request", on a formal level, always seems to be the same, that is the "denazification" of Ukraine, its "neutralization", the recognition of the annexation of Crimea and the independence of Donbass. And its acceptance would seem to be subject to the termination of the "military operation" in place. However, the ability of "Western" leaders to enter into serious negotiations with Vladimir Putin, increasingly less inclined, for his part, to reach a compromise with a counterpart that is too weak (and the reference certainly does not go to Ukraine) still seems to lack. in order to guarantee its tightness.
Saying it otherwise, and despite the attempt to describe a Russia "in suffering" as apparently weakened by the infliction of exemplary sanctions, I have the impression that as long as Vladimir Putin is not reached by a "Voice" that he himself can accept as authoritative and worthy of attention, as well as of "prevailing force", no useful negotiation, and with lasting effects, will ever be able to take place. In short, the problem is one of "leadership" rather than "substance": and strategy, as we know, is a business for a few. All the more so when his natural and very powerful alter ego, Xi-Jinping, keeps all the interest in not expressing a clear and clear position on military intervention. With the attack on Ukraine, that "limit" beyond which no one would have thought to venture has definitively fallen: in fact, that "special military operation" has cleared the way to a new / old and voracious state authoritarianism which , repeatedly engaging the "silent" contradictor in Stars and Stripes, favors the unarmed advance of China which, in turn, and for its part, could well, at the outcome, but also in the short and medium term , to carry on its expansionist ambitions completely undisturbed, given and considered - very often it is forgotten - that it shares thousands and thousands of kilometers of border with Russia. In short: between commonality of interests and ideologies, and subtle opportunisms, the China-Russia relationship unfolds especially in the context of a conflict that the parties in the field are careful not to define in terms, probably more realistic for those who find themselves suffering it, of the " invasion "and / or" war ".
Let's be clear: the terminology still hides a hidden but dramatically present subliminal message, albeit unacceptable on an unconscious level even before being naturalistic. To speak in terms of pure and simple (if such it can ever be, and cannot be) "military operation" instead of "war", somehow, by the Russian-speaking "Leader Maximus", means under-understanding that, from his part, the deployment of forces is minimal, and that despite everything, despite the devastation and pain so mercilessly inflicted, the strength on the field deployed by him is laughable compared to real potential. But, beyond and beyond such preliminary reflections, what interest can China ever push, which has always proclaimed itself respectful of the sovereignty of all countries and their territorial integrity, to pause in a sort of strategic ford that would seem not to do it honor ? Why doesn't it actively intervene to stop the "massacre" (rectius: the war operation) in Ukraine of which it is the very first trading partner? Business partner yes and ally no? Evidently the matter is more complex than it appears, and this faded and distracted "West" seems to have lost all contact with reality in order to be able to understand and interpret it. If this were not the case, he would not have determined in the sense of proceeding with the dispatch of weapons to Ukraine assuming the role of an "occult" partner but not too much, in the context of war that one is aware of not being able to embrace but which, in such a way , we insist, certainly in good faith and understand the reason, not to want to give up in order to allow the Ukrainian people to resist. "Yes" convinced, therefore, of peace operations and humanitarian corridors, but, from my humble point of view, "no" dry and determined to the dispatch of armaments which, after all, would seem to assume (this is the impression) the flavor of an almost active participation in the conflict at all our peril, considered the "modus reasoning" of today's "invader". Well. To return to the initial questions, and to offer a plausible answer to them, it does not seem possible to ignore a fundamental circumstance in Asian strategic "thinking", that is, the Chinese principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of others. It seems obvious, but this is not the case if we consider the generalized action of other international "competitors". Especially where we pause to consider that, since the collapse of the USSR as traditionally understood, the framework of possible alliances seems to have undergone decisive transformations for which the "price" is starting to be paid today: it is from that precise moment, in fact, that the United States seems to have thought it could change its attitude towards the Chinese power, for having identified it, and in this erring, on the one hand, no longer as a useful subject to manage the geopolitical equilibrium to the east of the planet and, on the other hand, to having "qualified" it as a new and threatening world "player". What, evidently, led China to get closer to Russia, starting with it a convergence of interests that is difficult to oppose or undermine, especially in the aftermath of the "events" of the "Ukrainian spring" of 2014. In other words, in my opinion, the he main mistake of the pro-atlantist “West” was that of wanting to maintain clearly distinct development and partnership tracks between Europe and Asia, believing that it could prevail over the latter.
But such binaries, however, have only contributed to increasing the lack of communication between the two Worlds of which the second, the Asian one, over the long distance, has proven to be able to impose itself without ifs and buts, determining a tactical imbalance entirely suitable for grasping surprise Washington and its Allies. If "divide et impera" still constitutes the golden rule of every form of imperialism, it will certainly not be neglected by the Asian powers of Russia and China which, as of today, seem not to want to miss the opportunity to inflict on the Western "competitor" a new and unusual strategic shot. Asia, in its entirety, constitutes, with the presence of Japan, an economic development ground with incalculable potential that the results of this conflict could further strengthen to the detriment of a Europe with an organization that is still obsolete and uncoordinated.
This means, in my humble opinion, that as long as Vladimir Putin's "special military operation" remains somewhat "contained" (I suffer from using this word, but it appears useful on a purely argumentative level), then Xi-Jinping will continue to urge peace on the linguistic level without intervening in the least on the diplomatic level. If and when, the war intervention were to hint at assuming greater dimensions or simply to intensify by escaping the hand of its own promoter, then and only then, we will be able to witness a direct and decisive intervention by China that has never needed armed war. , in the recent past, to subdue the peoples. The Chinese "wars", if ever they can be defined as such, are purely of an economic nature. To conclude, at this moment, Russia and China share the same goal: the weakening of the United States. The checkmate will depend on the ability of the Old West to act by surprise by breaking the axis of Russian-Asian interest by offering China a more attractive westward economic path than, hypothetically, "building" to the east. The goal, in other words, the only possible and useful one to stop the conflict, is to pursue the path of geopolitical isolation of Russia, which has proved to be completely oblivious to even heavy economic sanctions.
Giuseppina Di Salvatore
(Lawyer - Nuoro)
