China Has Emerged Unscathed, Strengthened From Ukraine War

"win-win" to use a favourite phrase of Chinese diplomats. The danger of an outright Russian defeat is now completely excluded; Russia has lost many men, and the Russian economy is suffering grievously, but Mr Putin can still claim a plausible "victory", and that's all that matters from China's viewpoint.

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Far from being a hindrance, the fact that tensions between Russia and the West will continue and that the US seems set to remain more engaged in Ukraine than President Trump initially wanted is actually a boon for Beijing because this ensures that there is limited scope for an improvement in relations between Russia and the US.

There is no evidence that Mr Xi ever feared the possibility that the US would be able to prise Russia away from China. Still, the latest diplomatic moves in Ukraine must have reassured Chinese officials that the obstacles to a normalisation in US-Russian relations remain real and deeply entrenched.

Of equal importance is the realisation that China has had to pay no diplomatic or economic price for its support of Russia in what Beijing still gingerly refers to as the "Ukraine crisis". Its relations with the US and Europe are no better or worse than they would have been. And the way the present phase of the war appears to be coming to a conclusion has allowed China to regain some diplomatic initiative in Europe.