It's been one year now since Vladimir Putin launched his assault on Ukraine, and China has sought to maintain the same difficult, awkward straddle across a difficult year. Did Beijing's efforts to project the impression that it had distanced itself from Russia in the wake of the Party Congress mean anything? And how should the U.S. manage its expectations of what China can or will do? Evan Feigenbaum, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, joins us again as he did a year ago. We're also joined by his colleague Alexander (Sasha) Gabuev, who is a senior fellow at Carnegie, who headed the Carnegie Moscow Center until recently.

4:37 – Are Beijing’s actions surprising?

7:34 – The nature of China-Russia relations

15:45 – How has Beijing concretely supported Russia?

22:07 – Did Beijing know Putin was going to invade?

29:48 – European perspectives on the No Limits partnership

37:02 – Beijing’s assessment of Russia’s military performance

39:07 – What Beijing has learned from Russia’s invasion

46:47 – What carrots can the United States offer China?

A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.

Recommendations:

Sasha: Writing From Ukraine: Fiction, Poetry and Essays since 1965 by Mark Andryczyk

Evan: The Road Less Traveled: The Secret Battle to End the Great War,1916-1917 by Philip Zelikow

Kaiser: Jessica Chen Weiss on The Ezra Klein Show and The Problem With Jon Stewart; "Avoiding Catastrophe Will Be the True Test of Fractious U.S.-China Relations," an op-ed in the Financial Times by Jude Blanchette

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