Putin (and China) dodged Trump’s sanctions bullet at the Alaska summit

Vladimir Putin dodged Donald Trump’s threat of punishing Russia for dragging out the Ukraine war. That is the most visible result of Friday’s Alaska summit between the Russian president and his US counterpart. This is also something that gave China a sigh of relief as, for the moment, it will not be the target of secondary sanctions from the US on Chinese oil trade with Russia.

Trump had threatened to impose new penalties on Russia and secondary tariffs on countries purchasing its oil if Putin failed to take steps to end the conflict in Ukraine. China and India, as the largest importers of Russian oil, provide profits that the Kremlin reinvests in the invasion of Ukraine.

Now, after the meeting in Anchorage, the US president said negotiations to reach a final peace agreement were more viable than focusing on an initial ceasefire, adding that he did not plan to level secondary restrictions against Beijing imminently.

Though China has demonstrated it has credible “cards” to counter Trump’s trade attacks, tariffs and sanctions are proving to be powerful geopolitical weapons in the hands of a superpower like America.

Putin can claim victory after the Alaska encounter, but he actually rushed to meet his US equivalent as the deadline neared for Trump to punish Moscow by targeting its oil clients.

Equally, Indian state refiners are reportedly waiting to see if there will be no new penalties to buy discounted Russian oil. Now, without a durable entente between Trump and Putin, India risks paying additional 25% tariffs on its exports to the US if it continues to acquire Russian oil.

In this sense, the recent border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia offered another clue. Bangkok and Phnom Penh concluded a ceasefire to halt fighting after Trump had warned that tariff negotiations with them would not progress if the war continued. Thai and Cambodian leaders recognised that the US president played a decisive role in stopping the confrontation. The US president had leverage, since America is the largest export market for the two Southeast Asian countries.

The use of secondary sanctions against Russia’s partners would set a precedent that the US could replicate in the event of a military confrontation between China and Taiwan. A Chinese attack on the island could push Trump to slap secondary duties against countries that could help Beijing resist a trade and financial embargo by the West.

Such a retaliatory response by the Western camp would imperil China’s supply lines, especially from Central Asia. The US and its allies would add pressure on Beijing by blocking strategic maritime chokepoints in the Indo-Pacific that are vital to its energy needs.

Thus, China had a lucky escape after Putin managed to buy time with Trump, averting punitive measures for continuing his war of conquest in Ukraine. Following the meeting in Alaska, US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham hinted that if a trilateral meeting between Trump, Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would not happen, the US president “may deliver severe consequences to Putin and those who buy his oil and gas”.

Graham is an active supporter of new sanctions against the Kremlin. In the run-up to the Anchorage summit, he had underlined that the new penalties’ goal “is to crush Putin’s [oil] customers, India, China and Brazil”.

At present, uncertainty remains as to the outcome of the Putin-Trump dialogue.

According to some reports, last month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas that Beijing did not want to see Russia losing the conflict with Ukraine, as this could allow the US “to turn its full attention to China”. The revelation has fuelled widespread accusations that China wants the Russia-Ukraine conflict to continue, so as to have US political and military resources pinned in Eastern Europe and thus far from the Taiwan Strait and the Pacific Rim chessboard.

And China’s alleged backing of Russia’s war against Kiev, a permanent drag on the US and Europe’s relationship with Beijing, reinforces the idea that the Chinese are working to avoid Russia’s defeat in the Ukraine quagmire.

China’s mathematics of military resources appears pretty sound, as US forces are a less threatening adversary for the People’s Liberation Army if thinned and stretched on both ends of the Eurasian landmass.

However, Beijing has more to gain from a US-Russia detente putting an end to or at least freezing the Ukraine war, than a never-ending conflict in Europe.

An agreement between Putin and Trump, with the resulting relaunch of the US-Russia dialogue, would bring greater stability to the international system — a boon for China’s problematic economy, not least after the last subdued data on factory output, retail sales and new home prices.

A Putin-Trump deal over Ukraine would also imply the acceptance of territorial and political losses by Kiev, and accordingly by the US and Europe. That result could give Chinese President Xi Jinping a stronger hand in asserting Beijing’s sovereignty claims over Taiwan and the China seas, as Taipei and other US allies in the region would question Washington’s resolve to protect them.

China should favour a rapid way forward for the Ukraine-Russia conflict, even if this means a rapprochement between Washington and Moscow. Indeed, it is unlikely this will be at the expense of Beijing’s ties with the Kremlin. The possible US-Russia reset is based on Trump’s personal relations with Putin, and the Russians know well that the next US president could change tack and resume a more confrontational stance against them.

Related: Was the Trump-Putin Alaska meeting about Ukraine — or China? | Trump-Putin summit: Is China nervous about a US-Russia deal?