What is the political justification by China and India for not participating in the sanctions against Russia?

Question

China and India are not participating in the sanctions imposed by the Western world on Russia for the invasion of Ukraine. This has effectively made the sanctions much less effective, compared to what they could have been.

Of course these countries have massive profits from being the only ones trading with Russia, as they can procure cheap energy, and also have a monopoly on selling products such as cars, phones, computers, etc to Russia.

So the real-politic answer to why they are not participating to the sanctions seems fairly obvious.

But what is the political justification for this? Are they admitting that it is just about the money, or is there a politically correct reason for helping Russia to invade into Ukraine?

Answer 1

First, please understand that China and India are sovereign nations, not in the EU, not in NATO. They do not need to take a position. Just because you say they do does not make it so. *

Having said that, China's position is the clearest stated, so I'll quote them from April:

China

During a daily press conference, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said, "As the culprit and the leading instigator of the Ukraine crisis, the US has led NATO in pursuing five rounds of eastward expansions in the next two decades or so since 1999."

"NATO's membership has increased from 16 to 30 countries and the organization moved over 1000 kilometers eastward to somewhere near Russia's borders, pushing the latter to the wall," Zhao added.

Keep in mind that China is challenging the West globally. Why the heck should they back sanctions? Their hope is probably to get better access to Russian weapons technology and raw materials from an enfeebled Russia afterwards, not burning bridges.

Public sentiment seems highly pro-Russia there as well. But China is also careful not to break Western sanctions and land itself in trouble. They're just not going out of their way to add any pressure themselves.

China also likes to say that Western powers (the US foremost) are too bossy for the rest of world, so pushing back against a Western set of sanctions makes sense.

(Not that China is above using sanctions of its own when it suits them.)

India?

(From memory listening to a podcast):

• Sentimental: they had friendly relations with USSR/Russia for a long time and not always good vibes with West.

• Practical: they buy a lot of Russian weapons, which they need to counterbalance China. On the other hand, China is an even bigger Russian arms buyer, raising problems of conflicts of interest. And... who fancies Russian weapons much these days, after 6 months of crashing live demos?

• Cheap oil. Probably very useful in a time of higher commodity and food prices.

Also, the US needs India to counterbalance China regionally and is trying to draw it into an alliance with Australia. That means the opportunity to "punish" India for not "following orders" is rather low. This is true in general for other "laggards" - the West needs to persuade them to isolate Russia, not try to bully them into doing so, which would likely backfire.

* In fact the West could take the opportunity to examine why the backing by Latin American and African nations has been lukewarm at most: we're not half as popular as we think we are. Some of that may be unfair, some of it may be for good reasons, all of it merits examining. But perhaps a good enough explanation is that it is an European/NATO theater war, not all that much of their business, except as it disrupts their economies.

Last, and I certainly don't mean it as my apology for Russia's behavior, from the PoV of many non-West-aligned countries and their citizens, the differences between Russia 2022 in Ukraine, USA 2003 in Iraq or NATO 2011 in Libya can be seen as rather subtle. Which brings me back to the West's need for more humility and empathy if it wants UN-level support in the future.

Answer 2

India was the progenitor of the Non-Aligned Movement during the cold war, they have a history of intentionally distancing themselves from this exact sort of situation. There has not been any concerted Western effort to punish India for this in the current conflict, so they lose nothing by maintaining neutrality and they get some cheap Russian exports to boot.

China is currently competing with the US and in a broader sense the West for global hegemony, it would be counterproductive for them to support the West in this engagement. Additionally, much like Russia claims Ukraine as its own and is willing to fight a war for its claim, China claims Taiwan as its own and is ostensibly willing to fight a war for it as well. If Russia is successful in conquering Ukraine, China may feel emboldened to conquer Taiwan.

Answer 3

Although the practical stance of India and China is rather similar, declaratively (which is what this Q is about), India has been less willing to endorse the Russian claims, at least in official communiques.

India urged “respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states,” called “for the immediate cessation of violence and hostilities,” regretted “that the path of diplomacy was given up” and urged the concerned states to “return to it,” and reiterated that “dialogue is the only answer to settling differences and disputes, however daunting that may appear at this moment.” India’s Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar reinforced these themes during his intervention in the parliamentary debate on Ukraine when, in a coded critique of Russian actions, he reiterated India’s position “that the global order is anchored on international law, [the] UN Charter and respect for [the] territorial integrity and sovereignty of states.”

But at the same time, their UN votes have been mostly abstentions

[India] has abstained from successive votes in the UN Security Council, General Assembly, and Human Rights Council that condemned Russian aggression in Ukraine and thus far has refused to openly call out Russia as the instigator of the crisis.

Generally speaking, the defense of India's position in the media has been left to unofficial sources, like former officials and so forth. E.g.

India not only depends on Russian weaponry, but it also relies hugely on Moscow for military upgrades and modernization as it moves toward self-reliance in its defense sector, said Lt. Gen. D.S. Hooda, a former Indian military commander.

“Russia is the only country that leased a nuclear submarine to India. Will any other country lease India a nuclear submarine?” Hooda asked.

Sushant Singh, a senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research, said: “India’s navy has one aircraft carrier. It’s Russian. India’s bulk of fighter jets and about 90% of its battle tanks are Russian.” [...]

Nath Misra, a retired diplomat and distinguished fellow in the Jindal School of International Affairs, said the U.S. hasn’t shown any willingness to provide technology transfers to India.

“I would like to ask our American friends: What kinds of defense technology have you given us? What the U.S. is offering is the F-16 fighter aircraft rebranded as the F-21. The F-16 is obsolete from the Indian point of view. We went for the Mig-21 in the 1960s because the F-104 was denied to India. We are seeing the same kind of thing,″ he said.

“Under the AUKUS agreement, the U.S. is willing to share the nuclear propulsion technology for submarines with Australia but is not willing to share it with India,” he added, referring to the trilateral security pact between the U.S., U.K. and Australia.

S.C.S. Bangara, a retired navy admiral, brought up the US betrayal that India felt in the '71 war, etc. They bring that up rather than the support they got in '62, but I suppose it's the more recent stuff that counts the most for them. Other sources [see 1st link] say that India takes US support against China for granted, given US' own interest, so they only care about not losing too much Russian support in this affair.

Answer 4

Why would they need justification one way or the other? It isn't their fight.

The war is between Russia and Ukraine. China, India, and countless other countries simply don't have a dog in the fight. Why would they potentially harm their own economies over a war they have no part in and has no direct bearing on them.

You're assuming everyone on the planet thinks Russia did something wrong. Not everyone sees it that way. Some countries will support Ukraine. Others will support Russia. The rest will simply stay out of it.

Answer 5

Important reason to join sanctions is the feeling about the own safety. EU obviously does not feel safe with the war going on so close to the border, neither they are sure if Russia would leave them in peace if allowed to take and keep the Ukraine. Severity of sanctions clearly correlates with the proximity to the Russian border and the Soviet past, with Baltic states going first.

Both India and China are probably large enough to feel safe. They can ignore this threat that is questionable for them and think how to benefit from the crisis instead.

Answer 6

I can't comment on the Indian point of view, but my understanding is that the People's Republic of China is opposed to sanctions in general, not just in relation to the conflict in the Ukraine. This NY Times article quotes a Chinese official as stating

The position of the Chinese government is that we believe that sanctions have never been a fundamental and effective way to solve problems, and China always opposes any illegal unilateral sanctions

I have read (but do not recall where) that China argues that broad sanctions are a tool which primarily makes a population suffer, rather than achieving a beneficial outcome for anybody. I'm sure there is a rich literature exploring in what context and to what extent sanctions are effective.

Personally, I find arguments against sanctions to be quite convincing, and I suspect that a lot of human suffering has been caused to the citizens of eg Iran for little if any positive impact in return, and I find the broad and I would say unquestioning enthusiasm for sanctions in my country's (Australia's) public discourse disappointing

Answer 7

The simplest reason is that what you call the "Free World" is simply the American Empire to everybody else who isn't dependent on it. And regardless of whether you like it or don't like it, everyone has seen the effect of American policies on countries dependent on it like Afghanistan in the 2000s and Germany now, and states within it like California and New York. They (India and China), and many other countries, do not wish to live in a unipolar world where everyone is subjugated to the American Empire, therefore it is in their interest to remain neutral, because regardless of what happens, the war is seen as a step towards a multipolar world where India and China don't have to bend for US policy, since Ukraine is seen as simply a vassal state for America because of the colour revolution engineered by the US government in Ukraine in the 2000s.

Answer 8

China, India and Russia are important members of such organisations like BRICS and SCO. Sanctions against one of the members of that organisation by an other ones would harm that organisations or posibly even destroy them.

China and India are among the countries seeing the use of sanctions for reaching political goals criticaly. Specially China facing itself some western sanctian shouldn´t be expected to suport the West in imposing sanctions on other countries.

From chinese point of view it doesn´t make much sence to suport the West fighting Russia as China could be the next having conflict with the West. A posible place for such conflict could be Taiwan. But there are also some other disagreements between China and the West about Hogkong and other chinese provinces.

Also it should be kept in mind that both China and India have experinced the previous 2 centuries of western colonisation, so when the West telling that countries what they have to do it wakes not the best historical memories.

Also the fact that Zelensky openly suported Taiwan hasn´t made China a friend of Ukraine.

Answer 9

As mentioned in another answer, China and India are members of SCO. In its joint statement, SCO sharply criticized the use of "unilateral" economic sanctions.

The ‘New Delhi Declaration’ released at the conclusion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Heads of State meeting hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has slammed the use of “unilateral” economic sanctions.

The criticism of unilateral sanctions by the Eurasian grouping comes against the backdrop of sweeping sanctions by G-7 nations against Russia over its special military operation in Ukraine.

Answer 10

Of course these countries have massive profits from being the only ones trading with Russia

Remember the sanctions are a partisan initiative, not a UN resolution. Most world states have not imposed any sanctions on Russia (here). Zhang Jun, China's ambassador to the UN, describes the sanctions as follows:

Unilateral sanctions indiscriminately imposed by the United States and other countries outside the council mandate are entirely for maintaining their hegemony, technology, gold monopoly, and ideology.”

And while there is certainly extra profit from trading with Russia when it is under US/EU sanctions - I'm not sure the profits are that "massive".

also have a monopoly on selling products such as cars, phones, computers, etc to Russia.

Since most world states don't sanction Russia, that is not the case. Also, remember that states and private corporations operating in those states are not the same thing. In China there is perhaps more of a symbiosis, but in India somewhat less so.

So the real-politic answer to why they are not participating to the sanctions seems fairly obvious.

It is fairly obvious, but it's not the massive profit potential you suggest. The obvious reason is that, well, China has no reason to sanction.

You see, sanctions are a rather extreme act in international politics - and often a surrogate to, or a supporting measure of, conducting wars. The US and its allies, on one side, and the USSR on the other side, had imposed lots of sanctions as part of their cold war; but other than that, on the world stage, many-state sanctions are rare, and even then mostly limited to arms/military equipment. On this Wikipedia page you'll find that the prominent examples from recent years are UN resolutions against Libya, Somalia, Apartheid South Africa and a few other cases.

Add to that the fact it's doubtful that sanctions against Russia would be helpful to the situation in Ukraine. Now, perhaps you believe they would be helpful; but many, or most, outside of NATO do not share that belief, and the leadership of China doesn't share that belief, as evidenced by the quote above. Chinese President Xi put it rather bluntly himself, it seems, last year:

[Xi] also took aim at Western sanctions, saying such penalties were a “double-edged sword” that weaponized the global economy and would “bring harm to the people of the world.”

Instead countries should “embrace solidarity and coordination,” he said, while also touting China’s new development and security initiatives as blueprints.

This rhetoric has recently been followed up by diplomatic efforts on Xi's part to mediate between Russia and Ukraine; such an initiative naturally agrees better with a neutral stance of the prospective mediator state.

(By the way - one could argue that China might have better helped by doing the opposite: Threatening to sanction NATO countries. I'm pretty sure there would have been multi-lateral talks for settling the Ukraine question pretty quickly if that were to happen... albeit at great economic cost to the whole world.)

But what is the political justification for this? ... is there a politically correct reason for helping Russia to invade into Ukraine?

China's position is neutral. It is not "helping Russia to invade". Yes, it could have - in theory - acted staunchly to block the Russian intervention, but that does not validate your description of the matter.

Answer 11

Do not forget that the current Ukrainian government came to power as a result of the so-called Maidan revolution, which in Russia is called a coup d'etat. The West is very positive about this event and it is one of the main official reasons for supporting Ukraine. China's opinion on this issue is rather closer to the Russian one. After all, the associations for China are not the best here: the protests of tiananmen 1989 and the uprisings in Hong Kong 2014 and 2019. At the same time, the uprising of 2019 was inspired by the Maidan and some Maidan participants took part there. Based on this, Ukraine's victory is not in China's interests. Although Russia's victory is also not China's priority, its defeat will have rather negative consequences for China.

Answer 12

The purpose of these sanctions is to support Ukraine, I can't say anything about India, but there is no reason for China to support Ukraine. Even if it is no longer in the foreground, China is still a communist country and is ruled by the communist party. However, Ukraine is now one of the most anti-communist countries where the communist party and all communist symbols were banned long before the events of 2022, which certainly does not bring Ukraine any sympathy from China. Anti-Chinese gestures and statements by Ukrainian politicians certainly also play a role. Zelenski's support of Taiwan, as well as Merezhko's recent statement, should be mentioned.

Answer 13

Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa are strong allies in what is called the BRICS alliance. The BRICS alliance was started by Goldman Sachs in 2006. Their stated goal is to replace the Petrodollar as the world reserve currency.

On the Brics 2021 website, they list the three pillars of the BRICS alliance to include economic and financial concerns.

"To promote economic growth and development for mutual prosperity through expansion of intra-BRICS cooperation in sectors such as trade, agriculture, infrastructure, small and medium enterprises, energy, finance & banking etc. BRICS cooperation under this pillar is aimed to promote collaborative approaches as well as innovative methods for the attainment of Sustainable development Goals."

This is apparent in their partnership with the New Development Bank which funds multiple sustainable development projects in seven countries.

Answer 14

There are thousands of examples when EU violates it's own "sanctions".

Putin's close partners still have Finnish or British citizenship and foreign property/accounts intact (like Rottenberg). Do not forget about their close relatives, large portion of them still have EU/US citizenship and property.

Thousands of Putins propagandists, who worked for decade (2014-2022) and helped him to strenthen his dictatorship fleed to EU, GB, Israel (in late 2022, when it was clear that there will be no fast victory), got citizenship and became so called "good russians".

So, answering your question: eastern people are more straitforward and are uncomfortable to participate in this mockery. As a proof - China actually do not buy much more oil or gas now and do not allow russia to build more pipelines.