Russia embarrasses China abroad and at home

Three weeks after declaring a "no-limits" partnership with Russia, China is too embarrassed to voice support as its friend bludgeons another country.

Russia's aggression against Ukraine presents the Chinese Communist Party not just with a need to avoid guilt by association. Domestically, the victimisation of Ukraine also touches a raw nerve of the Chinese people, a nerve that the CCP has itself wanted to keep tender.

First, the international problem. China has aligned itself with a country that is even more obviously thuggish than itself. It doesn't want to upset the thuggish friend but also doesn't want to worsen relations with countries that are upset with the thug. And it doesn't want to look like it's cut from the same cloth.

The answer has been diplomatic blather. Day after day, China says it urges restraint in the European situation, a line that no one can object to, or says it's concerned. On Wednesday, it tried to pin the blame on the US.

In part, China's international image is being damaged for a reason that its leaders probably only vaguely understand. Western leaders and officials who know a little history remember that in August 1939 the totalitarian states of the Soviet Union and Germany suddenly aligned with each other, and a week later, under cover of the new agreement, the Nazis invaded Poland.

We have trouble in seeing the world through China's eyes. But, in my experience, Chinese people, even scholars of international affairs who advise the government, also often don't understand how we think.

When we hear Russia and China declare a deep partnership, as they did on February 4, then see one of them try to overpower a neighbour, they look just like that evil pair of 1939. But maybe no one in Beijing has thought of bringing this to the attention of President Xi Jinping.

Unfortunately for China, the historical parallel should be especially clear in Europe, which is diplomatically important to it.

Most countries there still trail the US, Australia and Japan in standing up to China. They're shifting their positions, however, and Beijing doesn't want them to shift any faster, ultimately forming a solid bloc with Washington in opposing it.

The domestic problem for the CCP is that the Chinese people are committed to the sanctity of national borders and the rights of governments to control internal affairs.

Yet here we have China's mate Russia assaulting what Chinese understand as well as the rest of us to be an independent country.

They're sensitive because China itself suffered from invasion and loss of territory in the 19th and 20th centuries. They're even more sensitive because CCP propaganda never ceases to harp on about that history, to encourage everyone to rally around the flag.

It gets worse. One of the countries that seized Chinese territory in the 19th century was Russia - and hasn't given it back. Nor was it a small amount of land: Chairman Mao Zedong reckoned it at 1.5 million square kilometres, comparable to the area of Queensland.

Since China concluded a border agreement with Russia in the 1990s, its propaganda has not made much of this issue, but the people still know all about it. For the longer term, it has to be a worry for Russia: when will China, with its 1.4 billion people, demand the return of this largely empty space in Siberia?

Meanwhile, we don't need to make unnecessary difficulties for ourselves.

In parliament last week, Scott Morrison began urging China to denounce Russia's actions. But did he want to discomfort Beijing or Labor? He challenged the opposition to follow him (and it quickly did).

As Morrison seeks to paint Labor as soft on China, the domestic political value of his manoeuvre was clear, but whether it served Australia's interests was much less so.

Considering our modest strength, our relationship with China is already difficult enough; we didn't need to step out in front in challenging it (or goading it) over Russia and Ukraine. We could have left that one to friends that are closer to the European issue.

Last week a Chinese destroyer in the Arafura Sea, between Australia and New Guinea, directed a laser at a Royal Australian Air Force P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft.

This was an act of hostility and indeed violence, since a laser can blind pilots and potentially cause a crash. Also, the function of lasers on warships is controlling weapons, so using one is the same as aiming a gun.

Chinese armed forces have done this before to the US. The behaviour reveals their mentality.

This particular incident doesn't tell us much about the Chinese government's attitude, however, since the ship's commanding officer may have had no particular instructions about doing this. Beijing sometimes has problems with military hotheads.

MORE AGE OF THE DRAGON:

Nonetheless, it is responsible for controlling them.

After Canberra revealed the incident, Beijing responded that the Poseidon crew was guilty of such "spiteful and provocative actions" as dropping a sonobuoy. Chinese officials knew such an act was unremarkable but they also knew that the slightest military technicality would be enough to confuse foreign media, which would report the detail without scepticism.

A sonobuoy is just a microphone that floats in the water, usually to listen for sound from submarines. Dropping one is as provocative as holding up binoculars.

The Poseidon crew almost certainly dropped a sonobuoy to record the sounds of the Chinese ship and another it was escorting; this would be helpful in later identifying them.

The crew was probably not checking for the presence of a submarine, because the shallowness of the Arafura Sea strongly discourages underwater operations there.