In Ukraine, China finds itself on the road to nowhere

May 16, 2023

The best laid Belt and Road plans of Chinese President Xi Jinping are now going awry in Ukraine.

Green energy and the technologies that were to fuel it, along with the ecological and global warming fixes that came with it, were once Beijing's calling cards to the European Union and the key to dominating its commercial markets. Now, thanks to Russian President Vladimir Putin's disastrous war in Ukraine, China is faced with a road going nowhere in Europe. In fact, Xi, for failing to rein in Russia, is now perceived by the West as having blindly contributed to one disaster after another in Ukraine.

The large-scale controlled demolition of the Nova Kakhovka hydro power plant dam in Ukraine has sent Xi's plans for Europe completely off the road. The ecological devastation, still unfolding, is immense. Video images of tens of thousands of dead and dying fish are only the beginning of the emerging environmental disaster. Physical dangers caused by floodwaters to wildlife, farmlands, settlements and water supplies" are rapidly being compounded by "contamination from industrial chemicals," oil and other deadly ecological pollutants.

This evolving desolation comes on top of what Ukrainian environmental minister Ruslan Strilets had previously estimated to be $52 billion in ecological damage caused as of February by Putin's "special military operation." Destroyed forests, tainted farmland and bombed industrial plants have caused "heavy air, water and soil pollution, exposing [Ukrainians] to [toxic] chemicals and contaminated water."

It may soon, however, get even worse. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) looms further upstream and is reliant upon the Dnipro River to cool its active and spent nuclear fuel rods. Thus far, according to a Tuesday statement by Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), "the water level in the reservoir that is supplying Ukraine's [ZNPP] has been falling throughout the day, but the facility has back-up options available and there is no short-term risk to nuclear safety and security."

Water tables and alternative cooling supplies notwithstanding, the far greater risk posed to the ZNPP, and by extension to China, is Putin's open willingness to weaponize ecological disasters in pursuit of his war aims in Ukraine. To date, as noted by the IAEA, Russia has been reckless in its shelling of the ZNPP and surrounding spent fuel pools. The risk of Putin weaponizing the ZNPP is one we have long warned about in these pages, turning it into, if you will, a Dr. Strangelove-like "Nuclear Force Z."

In addition to potentially using the ZNPP as an ecological form of blackmail, Michael Horowitz, the head of intel for Le Beck International, posed a more than plausible theory in a thread on his Twitter account Tuesday. Essentially, he argues that by flooding the region, since it eliminates "a river-crossing operation" across the Dnipro, Ukraine's ability to "recapture the remaining part of Kherson is through Zaporizhzhia." Thus, if Ukrainian forces gather in and around the ZNPP, which is located in Enerhodar, a northern city in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast, it could give the Kremlin the option of using the destruction of its reactors as a nuclear checkmate.

If that happens, however, it will also be the end of the road for China in Europe for quite some time.

Slowly but surely, all of Europe is waking up to the reality of Putin's willingness to use the environment as a weapon. Even Switzerland is now on the cusp allowing transfers of its weaponry and ammunition (especially the short-in-supply highly valued Gepard Mobile Air Defense System ammo). The Council of States, the upper house of parliament of the Alpine nation, approved on Wednesday "arms re-export" to Ukraine. Ostensibly, the fear of potential radioactive fallout just got real in Geneva.

Beijing is facing a now or never moment. China's economy, while "rebounding," is still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic and is especially weighed down by its now partially stalled Belt and Road Initiative. Not only is Xi facing loan defaults from the initiative's debtor-nations, but by his continued tacit support of Putin's war in Ukraine, he is risking the loss of substantial European commitments to participate.

There are signs that Beijing is realizing what a strategic liability Putin is becoming, cheap oil and energy purchases notwithstanding.

In March, when Xi met with Putin, he also intriguingly met with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. Historically, Chinese leaders have been highly conscious of only meeting with their foreign peers. That Xi met separately an official beneath his own rank was therefore significant.

Mishustin, widely thought of as an unassuming technocrat and not an ideologue, might well be viewed by Beijing as the perfect caretaker for a post-Putin Russia. Given the Kremlin's ever-increasing economic dependence on China, it is highly doubtful that Moscow missed Xi's subtle "anointment" of Mishustin, a former taxman, as an acceptable Putin successor to safeguard Beijing's economic interests in Russia.

For now, Xi has been willing to play it both ways. Weakening the West militarily plays to his favor with respect to any plans to invade Taiwan. Undoubtedly, that is a card he does not want to readily give up, as evidenced by the joint Russian and Chinese bomber mission on Tuesday over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea.

Nonetheless, Xi's patience with Putin is likely nearing an end. China cannot afford a Russian-initiated nuclear disaster in Europe, either by the use of tactical nukes in Ukraine or through weaponization of the imperiled nuclear plant. In 2022, China was the third largest purchaser of EU exports and the largest source of EU imports, at 9% and 20,8%, respectively.

Xi surely grasps that Putin's wanton destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam risks ruining his aspirations for a green energy version of the Belt and Road within Europe. In turn, the Biden administration and the EU, far too quiet up to now, must make clear to Xi his responsibility to rein Putin in. For if the Russian leader stays his present course, then China really is on a road to nowhere in Ukraine.

Mark Toth is an economist, entrepreneur, and former board member of the World Trade Center, St. Louis. Jonathan Sweet, a retired Army colonel and 30-year military intelligence officer, led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014.

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