After his arrival in Moscow on Monday, President Xi Jinping said that China is ready, along with Russia, ‘to stand guard over the world order based on international law’. This statement came closer than ever before to articulating his view that a normative struggle is going on between a western-dominated order, and one more suited to Beijing’s interests. As he departed yesterday, he went further: ‘Right now there are changes, the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years. And we are the ones driving these changes together.’

Having positioned himself as a potential peacemaker, Xi clearly believes the war in Ukraine presents him with a win-win situation ­­­– or even a win-win-win one. His thinking is that, if Vladimir Putin ends up clawing some kind of victory, the West will be discredited and is likely to descend into recrimination and introspection. In other words: a win for Xi.

However, if Ukraine triumphs, then Russia’s slump into Chinese vassalage will be accelerated: another win for China. Russia’s economy is already trading a dependence on the dollar for one on the yuan: many in Moscow worry that where the economy leads, policy follows.

Then there is the third outcome. If Beijing brokers a peace deal with its 12-point plan (and Putin may well be more likely to swallow a bitter pill if it is presented by Beijing), then its claims to being a true global power and a principled alternative to the West are vindicated.

Yet this tar-baby of a war might not necessarily prove quite as congenial to Chinese interests as Xi believes. From my own experience, while Putin and his septuagenarian cronies are obsessed with fighting the West – at the expense of everything else – the next generation of Russian leaders waiting in the wings are much more Beijing-sceptic. They are keenly aware, too, of the dangers of being sucked into China’s orbit.

This can be seen in the coverage in the Russian press of Chinese espionage inside Russia (which once would have been handled with a quiet word and a token slap on the wrist). It was explained to me that, by highlighting the issue, the Federal Security Service – one of the bases of Putin’s power – was trying to alert the Kremlin to a growing threat.

China’s unwillingness to turn its much-touted ‘friendship without limits’ into any kind of practical support is also angering many within Russia’s elite (Putin still uses the expression; Xi does not). The war is grinding away at Putin’s legitimacy and whatever he may spin as a ‘victory’ will be vastly less than his grandiose aspiration to bring Ukraine back under Moscow’s control. Xi expressed confidence that Putin would win re-election next year. But in the longer term, it is not unthinkable that the war could end up bringing forward a transition that will see this new political generation of China-sceptic elites rise in Moscow.

This is not so much one war as two interconnected ones: a kinetic struggle in Ukraine and an economic and political one between Russia and the West

The Russian elite’s misgivings about China aren’t misplaced. Beijing is reportedly allowing some assault rifles (coyly labelled ‘hunting weapons’) and spare parts for drones to be exported to Russia via Turkey and the UAE, but only for cash and with a clear understanding that serious transfers of heavy weapons are off the table. Clearly, China is unwilling to jeopardise trade with the West – worth more than $1.5 trillion – for Russia’s $200 billion. And while China continues to buy discounted Russian oil and gas, its banks have largely retreated from the country.

A post-war Ukraine will take whatever reconstruction aid it can get, but its focus will be on closer ties with the West, not Beijing. By 2019, China was Kyiv’s largest single trading partner, not least because of massive imports of Ukrainian corn. However, the EU as a whole outmatches it. Kyiv has made little secret that it will apportion reconstruction contracts to the countries who helped it in its time of need. One usually downbeat EU official told me: ‘After the war, rebuilding Ukraine will be hard, but once it is done, Europe will be stronger than ever and less susceptible from pressure, whether Russia’s army or China’s economy.’

Meanwhile, another threat to Xi’s plan is that, as a result of the war, the West is arming and reconnecting in a way not seen for 30 years. Nato members are increasing their defence spending; even the EU is beginning to get serious about security. Then there is Aukus and Japan’s agreement to develop its new fighter jet with Britain and Italy. These measures all mean that Europe is increasingly connected with what China considers its backyard.

The war is also forcing Beijing to reassess its own stereotypes, including the assumption that the West is not willing to accept pain in economic warfare (over energy, for instance), affecting Chinese calculations about the potential fallout from a move to take Taiwan.

However, Xi is not alone in potentially miscalculating the outcomes of the war. At present, everyone involved seems, mistakenly, to believe that time is on their side.

Moscow is sure that, eventually, western will to support Ukraine will wane, allowing it to force some kind of an ugly peace on Kyiv ­– which Putin can spin as a win. The Kremlin fastens on every hint of division or exhaustion as reassurance. When Florida governor and potential Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis recently affirmed that ‘becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia’ was not one of the USA’s ‘vital national interests’, it was hailed on state TV as evidence of the return of American isolationism.

Win or lose, the war is catastrophic for Russia. The scarring of its economy and society will take years to heal. Sanctions will persist as long as Putin is in power. The recent decision by the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant on him for war crimes helps fix Russia’s status as a pariah state.

Ukraine is certain that with continued military assistance, it will be able to assert itself on the battlefield, forcing Russia to withdraw or come to terms. Then, the narrative goes, the West will help rebuild the shattered country (EU estimates put the cost at $750 billion) and Ukraine will be welcomed into the EU and Nato. It may prove easier to maintain support in times of war than peace, though.

Meanwhile, the West’s mantra that ‘the war ends when Kyiv says it ends’ is a way of avoiding this debate. The West is escalating support for Ukraine in the hope that this will speed the end of the war, but if it doesn’t – and it may well not – then it will be harder to maintain a united front for continued support on the same scale. A commentator close to Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, who has refused to provide Ukraine with military aid, told me with scarcely hidden anticipation that, ‘when another winter rolls around and Kyiv still hasn’t won, they will no longer be talking about us as the outliers’.

Besides, even if the West can bankroll a victory on the battlefield, Ukraine’s security will not necessarily be ensured. Moscow can still find many other ways of destabilising its neighbour, from strategic corruption to outright terrorism, undermining efforts to help the country build a sustainable democracy and market economy.

Of course, this is not so much one war as two interconnected ones: a kinetic struggle in Ukraine and an economic and political one between Russia and the West. With the West already having pledged more than $150 billion in military, humanitarian, and economic assistance (only about half has actually been provided so far), it is counting not just on Ukrainian success on the battlefield, but on sanctions eroding domestic support for Putin, and Russia’s ability to fight. In the words of a British official: ‘It’s a long game and, in a way, we depend on the Ukrainians to hold the battlefield while we grind away at Russia’s capacities.’ As Putin militarises his economy, though, that may be no quick or easy task.

Ukraine has no choice but to fight for its freedom and sovereignty. But in the process, it is bleeding itself dry. A British Ministry of Defence source uncomfortably accepted that recent claims in the Washington Post that Kyiv had suffered 120,000 casualties to Moscow’s 200,000 were ‘not that far off the mark’, and mean it is suffering twice the losses, proportionate to population. At the same time, its economy is on life support, shrinking by a third last year. Much of the financial assistance has come in the form of loans, not gifts. As the war drags on, Ukraine risks exchanging freedom from Moscow’s imperialism for dependence on demanding creditors.

After what he called his ‘journey of friendship, cooperation and peace’ to Moscow, Xi gave no sense of any serious shift in policy – yet China still has the greatest freedom of manoeuvre. It could bring pressure to bear on Russia and earn that mantle of peacemaker. It could decide to step up support for Moscow in return for vassalage. Or it could continue to sit back and watch everyone else suffer. Ironically enough, while not ostensibly a player in this game, Xi holds all the cards.