Decoding Putin and Xi's blueprint for a new world order | DW Analysis

“The worst outcome would be if President Putin decided to use a tactical nuclear weapon.” “All humanity finds itself at a crossroads: war or peace. “We may end up going back to the Stone Age and, you know, something very, very dangerous.” Xi Jinping has publicly distanced himself from Putin's nuclear threats, part of his effort to appeal to Europeans and open transatlantic divisions between them and the United States. So here you can see the outlines of Moscow and Beijing taking a multi-pronged approach towards Ukraine. Russia is preparing for a long war and is getting all the help it can get from China.

Beijing is keeping Moscow afloat... while doing what it can to divide the West. And Putin backs all this up with threats of nuclear escalation. “He feels quite sure that time is on his side, that things are not going well on the front, but they are not going completely bad for him. And then, at some point, the Western will to support Ukraine could break. We could have Donald Trump back. We may have a different president in France. We could have a different chancellor in Germany. And that's where the Ukrainians start fighting internally. And that is what ultimately fails to control Ukraine, but keeps what is left of Ukraine broken, dysfunctional, miserable and depopulated.

And that's a pretty good result. That's your bet." And for China... that might look quite attractive. A situation that could (potentially) be taken advantage of. “Right now there is a war, yes, in Europe, which will last many years. No one knows how many years, but this is the only conclusion we know that it will simply last. So for many years NATO will simply be stuck in Europe.” “Imagine Russia holds a big exercise or steps up its activity in Ukraine at the time when China wants to take action against Taiwan. “I think that would put a lot of American defense planners in a difficult situation because obviously resources need to be allocated to address the challenge in the West, in Europe.” This underlines that any end to the war will be about much more than Russia and Ukraine.

It will be a test of will and resilience for everyone involved... Russia and China together... and Ukraine and the entire collective West. Autocracies versus democracies, disagreeing about the future of the

world

. The drama in Russia surrounding mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin challenging the military leadership raised questions about the Kremlin regime... Questions that matter for China. "Concerns about possible instability in Russia will still be there in the future and will be watched closely by Beijing." But there is little expectation that China will abandon Russia. “Xi Jinping really sees Vladimir Putin as a crucial partner in weakening the United States.

In my opinion, it is no longer possible to drive a wedge between Russia and China, if it ever was possible.” “The view in Beijing is that China is in this period of protracted confrontation with the United States and nothing less than a complete surrender will achieve a fundamental improvement in US-China ties. So China thinks about its relationship with Russia in a counterfactual way. So what if we throw Vladimir Putin under the bus, criticize his illegal invasion of Ukraine, introduce our own sanctions, demand that he abandon all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, then Putin's regime will probably be doomed at some point and collapse ?

And then there is a new government that wants to be friends with the West. So the West will simply pocket this concession and say: thank you, China, goodbye. Now, what about Xinjiang? What about Taiwan? What about intellectual property theft? What about their technology programs really challenge American dominance in those fields? What about its military strengthening? So China will lose a very valuable partner and instead will have even more problems with the United States.” It is a cold but powerful calculation. Bringing two men, two regimes closer and closer. They need each other, the Emperor and the Tsar.

So that's where we find ourselves. Russia and China are determined in their mission to confront the West. America uniting the West. Powers like India seek to pave their own path. It sounds like a new cold war for our century. The

world

on a knife edge.