Xi Jinping confided secret Russia. US declassified document

Leaders in Moscow and Beijing want democracies to descend into chaos and disorder. They see the Western-led international order as arrogant, weak and ripe for overthrow. But behind the façade of mutual knowledge lie deep fissures of history, race and power, writes China expert Michael Sheridan in The Independent.

The bear and the dragon can never be friends. It’s a lesson Xi Jinping heard from a young age. I explain why the Chinese leader’s limitless partnership with Vladimir Putin can turn into a limitless liability—for the Kremlin.

While researching a new biography of Xi, I came across a surprising declassified American document. It reveals that the man who mentored Xi in his first job, in the Chinese military, was a fierce anti-Russia. Never trust Moscow, he told his students, Sheridan writes.

We know about Putin's formative years in the Soviet KGB. But few people know that Xi Jinping grew up learning to hate and fear the Soviet Union.

That's according to a White House cable detailing how Xi's mentor, Chinese defense chief Geng Biao, gave Americans the most comprehensive description yet… of the Sino-Soviet conflict.

Xi was then Biao’s private secretary – or mishu – his first job after graduation. He got it through family connections (his father was an old comrade). It was a privileged role: he handled the secret documents, carried the bag, and was his master’s eyes and ears.

Xi earned a meager salary but had access to the trust of the top of the communist power. He saw and heard it all in a radical shift in China’s strategy toward the West. It opened the door to incredible economic growth for China, making it a major world power. But that’s exactly what the Russians didn’t want.

The declassified US document shows how Xi's boss visited the White House on May 28, 1980, met with President Jimmy Carter and then had lunch with Secretary of State Edmund Muskie.

Geng explained to Xi that China's only friend in the Kremlin was Stalin. But after his death, the Soviets demanded influence over most of northern China. They wanted to station troops on Chinese territory, command a joint fleet and establish long-distance communications.

Worst of all, Geng said, the Russians wanted China to remain a poor and backward breadbasket for the socialist bloc. They said there was no need for industries because the Soviet Union would have provided them with all the machinery they needed; his country would always have been an agricultural society and would have remained forever a Soviet satellite.

We know the story is accurate because Muskie wrote it himself.

It is no exaggeration to say that world history would have been different if the Chinese had heeded this wise advice. But they did not, and Xi is now the heir to its gigantic economic and military power.

As the young Xi sat in on the meetings, he heard his superiors airing old grievances. The flags on the wall represented lands taken from China in a 19th-century treaty that ceded to China the regions beyond the Black Dragon River. Today, these are Russia’s Pacific provinces, including the vital port of Vladivostok.

The British have returned Hong Kong to China, but there is not the slightest hope that Putin or any other Russian leader will reverse what the Chinese still call an unequal treaty.

Russia becomes an economic satellite of China

Today, everything seems fine. The two autocrats have been touting their alliance for more than two years. It is clear that Putin hinted to his friend that he was about to invade Ukraine in February 2022. Since then, Xi has been different, talking peace but sending Russia military technology in exchange for oil and gas.

And Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is such a blatant crime against international law that it undermines the fundamental principle of China’s sovereignty. After all, Beijing officially recognizes Ukraine as a nation and the Zelensky government as its legitimate leader. Putin does not.

This glaring contradiction cannot last long. China appears to have helped dissuade Putin from using tactical nuclear weapons at the start of the war. Its unlimited aid is strictly limited by sanctions. Ironically, Russia is becoming an economic satellite of China.

Then there is this legacy of suspicion. Xi’s chosen foreign minister, Qin Gang, was ousted in the wake of a sex and spy scandal, following a tip from Moscow that he had been compromised by the CIA. Everyone spies on everyone else.

Is Xi Jinping, who came to power hearing in his youth that Russia is a barbaric hut, about to sow panic through decades of prosperity by betting everything on Putin’s war? Michael Sheridan doesn’t think so.