Why hasn't this gotten some media play? Normally I'd think that a Chinese nuclear guarantee to a European state is kind of a big deal (tip to Instapundit):
On Dec. 5, Mr. Yanukovych and President Xi Jinping signed a bilateral treaty officially pronouncing that China and Ukraine are now “strategic partners.”
“China pledges unconditionally not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against the nuclear-free Ukraine and China further pledges to provide Ukraine nuclear security guarantee when Ukraine encounters an invasion involving nuclear weapons or Ukraine is under threat of a nuclear invasion,” said a joint statement on the pact.
China’s official media, including Xinhua and Global Times, touted the deal with the headline “China Pledges Nuclear Umbrella to Protect Ukraine.”
Ukraine and China also agreed they would not allow “the establishment of any separatist, terrorist and extremist organizations or groups, and any of their acts, to harm each country’s sovereign rights, security and territorial integrity.” This might require Kiev to crack down on any organized dissent against Beijing.
Well that's a whole lot of interesting. Maybe Ukraine's leaders really are just buying time until they think they can safely disengage with Russia in 2015, as I note in this post. Because Russia has to take note of this development in a big way.
One, China has extended their nuclear umbrella to cover Ukraine? That's big. That means China is willing to risk nuclear war with Russia over the defense of Ukraine.
Two, while I have no idea what the notion that the internal dissent provision would require Ukraine to crack down on "dissent against Beijing," this seems very clearly to apply to the ethnic Russian population (who are generally pro-Russia) of eastern Ukraine (and the Crimea where Russia retains major military bases) that might be the Sudetenland of our age that Russia might want to absorb as a consolation prize if Putin can't get all of Ukraine.
Oh sure, the Russians might comfort themselves by saying that distant Peking is hardly about to risk a nuclear war over the fight of relatively tiny Ukraine!
Hey, isn't that logic applicable to Russia risking a nuclear war over the distant and sparsely populated Russian Far East?
UPDATE: I know I want China to focus on the interior of Asia to keep them from focusing on the naval front where we are, but I never assumed that China would focus that deep in the Eurasian continent.
If this nuclear guarantee is as it is portrayed, this is huge. China is offering a nuclear guarantee to a European state against Russian aggression. Remember, Ukraine can't get a NATO nuclear umbrella because of the Russian bases in the Crimean peninsula (NATO membership rules forbid member states from having bases of nations outside the alliance). So China is the only game in town if Ukraine wants to give Russia atomic pause about invading.
Russia may be enjoying some success in the Middle East lately, but having China involved this way in Russia's so-called "near abroad" is a major defeat for Russia.
UPDATE: Oh, while I'm here, let me note (as I did in a subsequent post) that the report was in error and that the Chinese statement was really a rather ordinary statement about the issue generally, rather than a Chinese nuclear umbrella for Ukraine.
