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‘Earthquake’ In Russia Sends ‘Shockwaves’ To China: Why Wagner Mutiny Has Flustered Beijing To The Core

Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin called off his advance on Saturday and reportedly reached a deal with the Kremlin to go into exile in Belarus. Details of the agreement have not been made public.

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However, Prigozhin reportedly said that arms and ammunition supplies were not sent to him in time, and his men were getting killed. He allegedly demanded that President Putin remove some of the generals of the Russian army.

The Wagner Group controlled key military facilities in Rostov-on-Don, the headquarters of Russia’s southern military district. Hostility between the group and the Russian army is nothing new.

Russia has used the mercenary group as plausible deniability and claims limited direct involvement, as in Syria and Sudan. Russia had used it in the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The same year the group was used in the Donbas region in 2014.

Since the Russian war against Ukraine did not come to a quick end as Moscow had expected, and Russia’s gains went fuddled so much so that Kremlin had to deploy the Wagner Group openly in operations against Ukraine

It is now known to observers that there are differences among the Russian army cadres, and the leadership is not in complete unison as is being given out.

Generally speaking, numerous instances show the civilian authority not always trusting the generals. If that is the case with Putin, he is not a lone example. President Lincoln did not trust General Lee.

Watchful Beijing

But the aborted insurrection of Prigozhin has created strong reverberations in Beijing and shaken the entire polity of the country. Beijing is closely watching its spillover.

Soon after the Wagner Group announced its acceptance of the deal, Russian deputy foreign minister Andrey Rudenko traveled to Beijing to meet Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang and his deputy Ma Zhaoxu.

Beijing must have been more eager to know the Putin-Russian army relations. The first reaction from Beijing to the insurgency episode in Russia was a brief statement from the Chinese foreign ministry that the “Wagner Group incident was an internal affair for Russia.”

This cryptic statement was directed to the US and its Western allies that China would take any adversary remark on the incident as interference in the internal affairs of a state that the Geneva Convention disallows. It also puts at rest any speculation from any quarter that China has any misgiving on the incident.

Our inference is drawn from a separate statement from the Chinese foreign ministry saying the two diplomats had discussed “Sino-Russian relations and international and regional issues that are of common concern.”

China Underplays Uprising

Chinese deputy foreign minister, Ma Zhaoxu, added that “under the strategic guidance of Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, China and Russia had continuously deepened political mutual trust and enhanced practical cooperation.”

This can be interpreted as an indirect assurance to Moscow that if the need arises, China could “practically” cooperate with Russia in meeting the recurrence of any threat to the territorial integrity of Russia.

Exchange of assurances and re-commitment of cooperation in stabilizing the domestic situation by the two sides after the events speak more than what one may infer from the formal rhetoric. Insights into some comments from academia as well as sections of media would make the discussion spicy.

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