China’s President Xi Jinping opened the CCP’s 20th party congress by doubling down on four key issues: no let up on zero-Covid; no renunciation of force when it comes to Taiwan; a promise to build up China’s military strength; and no tolerance of any opposition to his rule. As he enters his third term, the most important new challenge he has to address are the export controls announced by the US on the eve of the congress that threaten to undercut China’s ability to develop semiconductors and supercomputers. Xi remains defiant: he promised to ‘resolutely win the battle in key core technologies.’

Yet Xi must be worried that the US has hardened its position, looking to find ways to limit China’s ability to strengthen its armed forces and promising to defend Taiwan if necessary. He must have hoped that when Russian tanks rolled across the border into Ukraine earlier this year, America would be distracted by Europe, potentially giving China the space to strengthen its global position. Biden’s sanctions last week, however, were a stark reminder for Xi that China remains firmly in America’s line of vision.

While Ukraine continues to dominate any foreign policy discussion in the West, the conflict did not feature at all in Xi’s speech. As the war drags on and Russia’s woes become ever more apparent, Xi wishes to distance himself from Vladimir Putin. What will most unsettle him is that the Ukrainians’ military success has been based on a similar strategy to that of the Taiwanese, demonstrating that the small island is much harder to invade than Xi might previously have hoped.

Instead of keeping the West occupied, Putin’s foolish and futile war has accelerated Russia’s decline as a great power, confirming that the 21st century’s face-off is between America and China. During a recent trip to Washington, I was left with the strong impression that the US national security community views the unavoidable imperative to support Ukraine as a distraction from developing the long-term capabilities needed to address the challenge posed by an increasingly assertive China. As one senior official told me: ‘We need to move on from Russia and get back to preparing for China.’ The UK is on the same page: Sir Jeremy Fleming, director of GCHQ, warned last week of the need to deal with technological competition from China.

Washington has never found it easy to focus fully on the Indo-Pacific region. A decade ago, Barack Obama announced the US would ‘pivot’ away from the Middle East and Europe to this region. China’s behaviour was antagonising countries in the region; a sharper US focus was therefore generally welcomed. But unlike Europe, where all America’s allies are gathered in Nato, there are a number of distinctive alliances in the Indo-Pacific region. Those tied to the US do not always have good relations with each other – South Korea and Japan, for instance. Other countries worried about China don’t intend to become US allies, such as India and Vietnam.

Nonetheless, the war in Ukraine may be reshaping the US-Chinese relationship in some significant ways: the invasion has boosted American power and sowed doubts in Beijing about the wisdom of its partnership with Moscow.

In America there is general satisfaction with a strategy that so far appears to be succeeding: Russia can no longer win this war and Putin might even lose it. Care has been taken to give Putin no excuse for nuclear escalation. This doesn’t mean that he won’t find one, although that would just make his situation even worse. Nato has been strengthened, western unity has been maintained, and American leadership in Europe reaffirmed. Not only are the ‘good guys’ being backed against a truly evil aggressor but they are also taking full advantage of arms supplies and the provision of real-time intelligence. America’s allies in the Indo-Pacific have also shown that they see this in global terms, and have provided active support for Ukraine in the hope that they would also be backed at a time of crisis.

China will be less confident. At the start of February, Putin visited Xi at the beginning of the winter Olympics in Beijing. This resulted in a long communique which promised their unbreakable friendship, highlighted their shared commitments to their authoritarian versions of democracy, and celebrated a multipolar world that limited the US’s power. Russia invaded Ukraine shortly afterwards. However, as the conflict has dragged on, Xi’s enthusiasm for a partnership with Putin has clearly waned. Yes, China has repeated some themes of Moscow’s propaganda and has reaffirmed its principled objections to Western sanctions but it has done precious little to support Russia economically or militarily. Indeed, it has taken advantage of Russian weakness to buy oil and gas at favourable rates. There has been no surge of arms exports to Russia. Instead Russia has turned to Iran for drones. If anything Beijing will be concerned that the aircraft and air defence missiles it is contracted to buy from Russia have performed poorly in Ukraine.

The irritation for Xi is twofold: not only did he back a man who has led his country into such an embarrassing intervention, but Putin’s intervention also triggered even more turmoil in the international economy. When the two met recently in Uzbekistan, Putin was obliged to acknowledge that the Chinese President had questions and concerns. Since then, China has avoided backing Russian policies, responding to Putin’s belligerence with calls for peace and cease-fires. At the UN General assembly China’s foreign minister told his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, that China respected Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, and rejected force. It’s worth noting, too, that if Ukraine is going to win and move into a phase of active reconstruction then China will not want to be left out of that process.

Russia’s war has been only one factor that has made this a difficult year for Xi: domestically he has various issues. His zero-Covid policy has demanded a succession of costly and unpopular lockdowns. The economy has also stuttered as a result of the real estate and debt crises, while environmental problems were highlighted by a brutal summer heat wave.

Internationally, he hasn’t had much luck either: the much vaunted ‘belt and road’ initiative across 150 countries, which was supposed to increase China’s global influence, has yielded limited results at a high cost.

Most of all, the Russo-Ukraine war creates doubts around a future Chinese military operation to take Taiwan. The island democracy invented the idea of the ‘porcupine strategy’ based on evading the enemy’s strength and exploiting its weaknesses, which Ukraine has followed so successfully. It should remind him that, however decisive armed force appears to be in theory, in practice it can turn out to be a nightmare, full of unexpected pitfalls and losses.

The two situations are of course not the same: taking Taiwan would involve more than crossing borders. It would be a demanding amphibious operation. And while Biden has made it clear that he wouldn’t risk actively defending Ukraine, he has said he would defend Taiwan.

As its disproportionate response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan demonstrated, the most likely Chinese option is not to opt for a full invasion but instead start any campaign with a blockade. This, though, carries the risk of a confrontation with the US and allied navies, including the UK, as they assert their right to freedom of navigation. If nothing else, Xi will have hoped this threat would deter the Taiwanese government from declaring independence soon, for such a shift would be seen as a provocation that no government in Beijing could ignore. (Peace has been maintained since the Chinese civil war ended in 1949 by both parties agreeing that they are still part of the same country).

Some analysts have warned that China’s rise will make some sort of clash with a declining US inevitable, with Taiwan the most likely trigger, although it is not the only point of contention. Now there is a new argument that China’s relative power might have already peaked and that this could create an incentive to act early. But up or down Beijing is not going to let the issue rest. And whether the country’s fortunes are declining or not, China remains a major economic and technological behemoth.

Although both sides are preparing for a period of confrontation, neither wants war. As relations become more tense, the possibilities for miscalculations grow, so that small incidents can have dire consequences. And China plays a role in the international economy that Russia can never match. Washington and Beijing still need to find ways to talk to each other.

Once Xi is through the party congress with his supreme power intact, Biden will be facing the US midterms. As the dust settles after this tumultuous year both countries may want to see if they can find a new modus vivendi, before matters get to the dangerous stage they have reached with Russia.