Make China pay if it bolsters Russia

Before Beijing hosted the Winter Olympics in February, a more consequential competition between authoritarianism and democracy played out as Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a 5,000-word statement declaring a partnership with "no limits."

That pact, and those words, might be put to an early test if recent reports of Russia requesting military and financial aid from China prove true. After a seven-hour meeting between U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi in Rome on Monday, Beijing should have no doubt that the U.S. and its revitalized allies would vigorously respond to material support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Sullivan telegraphed as much on Sunday, telling CNN, "We are communicating directly, privately to Beijing that there will absolutely be consequences for large-scale sanctions evasion efforts or support to Russia to backfill them."

While the meeting in Rome was private, the public description of it as "intense" and "candid" by a senior administration official to the Washington Post suggests that the tension that existed between Washington and Beijing before the war has only intensified. The U.S., the official said, has "deep concerns about China's alignment with Russia at this time."

The U.S. — and democracies everywhere — should share that concern. Two authoritarian geopolitical giants seeking territorial expansion (Russia in Georgia and Ukraine, and China with its eyes on Taiwan) and expanded influence is a threat to free people across the world.

Short of turning this new Cold War into a hot one, coordinated financial sanctions are the most effective lever in an interconnected global economy. China should know that it will face its own sanctions if it bails out Russia.

"Any decision by Beijing to provide arms to Russia in the midst of its invasion of Ukraine could have seismic implications," Ryan Hass, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's China Center and Center for East Asian Policy Studies, told an editorial writer in an e-mail interview. "It likely would hasten the cleavage of the world into adversarial blocs, with China and Russia on one end and much of the rest of the world on the other side. I expect the U.S. and Europe would respond strongly and swiftly to condemn such transfers and impose economic sanctions on China for aiding Russia's belligerence."

"There can be no so-called neutrality," Nicolas Chapuis, the European Union's ambassador to China, said at an event in Beijing. He added: "We really call upon all our Chinese friends to name the aggressor and to stand by the victim."

Well before the war, the Biden administration already had its foreign-policy focus on the long-delayed "pivot" to Asia. But just as previous administrations were forced to focus on the Mideast, Biden has had to rally U.S. allies behind a robust response to Russia.

"Crises compel prioritization," Hass said. "America's top priority with China right now is to deter China from backfilling global sanctions or to materially support Russia's war-fighting machine in Ukraine. All other issues with China are secondary in this moment to these priorities."

Priorities should be deeply examined in Beijing, too. China's economic and geopolitical ascendance depends on some stability in the global order, something its no-limits partnership with Russia jeopardizes.

"The longer the conflict in Ukraine goes on, the harsher of a spotlight Beijing will be under for its support for Russia," Hass said. "China's interests are ill-served by prolonged conflict, or by Russia's indiscriminate shelling of civilians or by massive refugee flows across Europe. China's economy also will be harmed by the rising prices for oil, food and commodities as a result of the conflict."