collection 2020
The Geopolitics of a Pandemic
A Divergent Rationale Behind the Russian and Chinese Aid to Italy
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By Barbara Polin
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Source: Martin Sanchez, Unsplash
While the COVID-19 ravages the world, Russia and China strive to take advantage of the resulting political instability, to expand their zone of influence. “Look at the alliances that China has, and compare them to the American ones. There is no confrontation possible” said Fabrizio Maronta, interviewed as curator of “Heartland-Eurasian Review of Geopolitics” and contributor to “Limes”, a major Italian magazine on International Relations.
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“This pandemic episode is an opportunity for China to acquire some true allies, not only commercial ones: trade partners would probably abandon Beijing in case of a war. China can not accept this”. As far as Russia is concerned, Maronta adds “ Russia wants to be accepted as a great European power: from being considered a weak constant in international relations, it wants to become a strong variable”.
“This pandemic episode is an opportunity for China to acquire some true allies, not only commercial ones.”
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- Fabrizio Maronta, curator of Heartland-Eurasian Review of Geopolitics
In March, the Italian spring awakes. A warm wind swings the trees’ branches, where
songbirds celebrate the nature’s return to life: on the 18th of March 2020, their singing stopped to mourn the dead.
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On that night, silence pervaded the streets of Bergamo, a city in the North-West of Italy that lost 4,500 citizens to the Coronavirus. There was no sound while the Italian army succoured the city’s only crematorium, overwhelmed by the number of deaths caused by the Coronavirus. A long row of military vehicles started in front of the building and reached the city’s borders: their engines rumbled quietly, while the drivers waited for the authorization to leave and transport away the victims of the virus.
Although quiet, the noise of the vehicles propagated like a thunder in the empty streets of the city. Indeed, all its residents were in lockdown: except for reasons of extreme necessity, the obligation to stay indoors was absolute. Thus, even a mumbled noise like the one of the military trucks resonated in every corner of the city, infiltrating windows, gardens and courtyards.
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It also reached the balcony of Emanuele, a Ryanair stewart who, made curious by that sound, leaned from his window. In an interview, he said that at first, he felt excited: “They are coming to save us!”, he thought. Then, the awareness about the direction of the trucks pierced his heart: they were not coming, they were leaving. Leaving with the dead. Slowly, Emanuele went back to his living room and closed the window behind him.
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The Good Samaritans of International Politics..?
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On the 20th of March, two days after the engines’ rumble waned in the deserted countryside around Bergamo, the sky above the military airport of Pratica di Mare trembled. The first of nine Russian planes, chartered by the Russian army, landed successfully. The Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Di Maio in an interview defined its arrival as a sign of international friendship.
The Russian jets carried medical equipment, useful to sanitize spaces, and it brought scientific personnel to contain the virus. All those resources were destined to Lombardy, Bergamo’s region, the area battered the most harshly by the epidemic.
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Moscow was not the first to show solidarity to Italy. On the 10th of March, Beijing announced that it was about to ship 1000 pulmonary ventilators and 100,000 health masks to Italy by the 13th of March. In less than 72 hours, the medical aid reached Italian territory. It also included a team of experts experienced in the containment of COVID -19. The flight on the 13th was the first of three sponsored by the Chinese authorities, who sent a total of three medical teams to support the struggle of the Italian health personnel against the virus.
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Even before landing, the Chinese and Russian medical aid constituted a true puzzle. To reach the Italian soil, their planes flew over the whole European continent: any flight to a struggling country in their own neighbourhood would have required less time and fewer diplomatic talks. Moreover, Russia and China intervened on the soil of an EU and NATO member, two international organizations with their own mechanisms of assistance.
Why did Russia and China bother to send medical aid to Italy, a remote country and member of these alliances?
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Observers from Russian, Chinese and Italian media answered this question with two dominant arguments: the medical aid served a humanitarian purpose, but also it aimed to support a beleaguered national health care system. Thus, they portrayed China and Russia as good Samaritans or caregivers, whose only goal was supporting a friendly nation in need.
Noble actions, geopolitical goals
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The overall positive tone of these explanations makes them similar to cheerful orchestral compositions, where every instrument plays a good piece: Moscow and Beijing have sent medical aid because they are fraternal and supportive, and Italy was relieved. Two symphonies alone, however splendid they may be, do not make a concert, especially if they are similar in tone.
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In fact, the motivations behind Chinese and Russian medical aid may be explained through the lens of the theory about the authoritarian understanding of the concept of soft power: this argument shifts the focus from the alleged solidarity of Moscow and Beijing to their potential geopolitical considerations. For Joseph Nye, the US political scientist from the University of Harvard who first coined the term “soft power”, authoritarian states consider soft power as a tool and expression of their interests.
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Vasif Huseyev, senior research fellow at the Center for Strategic Studies, elaborates on this theory. In a widely published academic article from 2016, he considers the development of public diplomacy, meant as a wide array of practices that aim to engage with foreign publics, as a consequence of the attempt to boost the state’s soft power. According to Huseyev, authoritarian leaders like the Russian ones, hope the resulting popularity will bring the foreign public opinion on their side, especially when it comes to their geopolitical interests.
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In virus veritas: expanding influence at the time of the Coronavirus
Beyond the glowing façade of charity, geopolitics is a keystone to understand Moscow’s and Beijing’s actions: both of them want to expand their zone of influence.
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From the Crimean peninsula to the South Chinese Sea, Russia and China have demonstrated their promptness in seizing opportunities to expand their geopolitical influence. If the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the Chinese assertiveness on strategic islands since 2011 are a demonstration of the will to use military strength to acquire more power, the institution of the BRICS shows that the Moscow and Beijing are eager to exert political influence on countries beyond their own regions. As a matter of fact, BRICS is an organization that gathers emerging economies from all over the world. As Bobo Lo, former Australian diplomat to Moscow writes, Russia enthusiastically sponsored the institution of the BRICS as it would have been able to influence the foreign policy decisions of different countries, while China agreed to fund it to have a greater number of allies around the world.
Soft is the new hard: the lust for soft power
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The old times where global geopolitical influence could be acquired by military means are over. For authoritarian countries like China and Russia, this is a problem. As Huseynev writes, countries like Russia assisted powerlessly to the decline of hard power, and they were appalled by the rise of soft power. Their political and social structure is based on military, therefore hard, power, and so it is their public international image. All of a sudden their power resources became dispensable.
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Alarmed by this inadequacy, Russia and China made huge efforts to boost their soft power. As it was detected by reports by Radio Free Europe and Freedom House, the expansion of State-owned media with an international reach grew substantially since 2015. Their growth served the purpose to project abroad a positive image of their political system, a picture able to exalt virtues and blur vices.
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The shipment of medical aid to Italy suits this strategy of growing soft power: the enthusiasm of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and the positive coverage of the Italian media is a demonstration of it.
“Russia and China are engaged in a global media operation to reconstruct their public image” states, in an email interview, General Marco Bertolini, former commander-in-chief of the Italian army’s elite department “La Folgore” (The Thunder) and expert in Strategic Studies. For Bertolini, China has the priority to wash away the guilt of having been the epicentre of the pandemic, replacing this stain with apparent generosity towards a friend in need. Russia, on the other hand, wants to gain credit as a strong, modern country, able to succour Italy with its modern medical equipment.
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Courting the weak: the resort to public diplomacy
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The lust for soft power nurtures public diplomacy, whose key goal is to engage with foreign publics. Russia and China, however, do not pick randomly which public opinion they want to engage. In fact, they have a preference for countries that they deem vulnerable but strategic.
As the USSR was used to do during the Cold War with unstable governments, China and Russia engage in public diplomacy with weak countries whose resources suit their foreign policy priorities. Indeed, strategic assets can lead to the coveted geopolitical influence, and an influenceable partner eases the achievement of this goal.
In this regard, Gu Guang Fu, from the Institute of World Economics in Beijing, noticed that the Soviet public diplomacy was an essential tool for the Communist Party to achieving strategic goals: it secured easy access to the natural resources of Third World countries, whose governments were very shaky. At the same time, it guaranteed that the public opinion of those countries would have a favourable opinion of the USSR, pushing the government to feel in a similar way.
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Master of the Mediterranean Sea, Underbelly of the West:
The Case of Italy
Today, Russian and Chinese public diplomacy follows the same pattern as that of the Soviets, and its implementation leads to the delivery of medical aid. The target is Italy, a country more renown for its cuisine and nature and less for its international political importance and vulnerability. If it is uncertain whether Russian and Chinese officials appreciate pizza and beaches, but their assessment about the strategic relevance and political vulnerability of Italian is definitely positive.
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In terms of strategical assets, Italy has resources that trigger the Chinese and Russian interest: from its geographical location to its political alliances, il Bel paese is a dainty morsel for Moscow and Beijing. General Enrico Pino, former head of the Historical Office of the Italian Army, explains: “The Italian peninsula is a junction point between Northern Africa, the Balkans and Northern Europe. Therefore, the consent of the national authorities is essential for any commercial shipment or naval expedition coming to the EU from the Strait of Suez or the Black Sea.”, said General Pino during a telephone interview.
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However, it is important to specify that the geographical location of Italy satisfies interests that are different on the Chinese and Russian side. For Arduino Paniccia, senior consultant in Strategic Studies for the Italian Army and founder of the School of Economic War and International Competition in Venice, Moscow sees Italy through a military lens, while Beijing adopts an economic approach. During a telephone interview, he asserts: “Russia may be testing the reaction of Italy in front of the growth of its military influence in the Mediterranean area. Moscow is already a key player in Northern Africa: it is a prominent ally to Al-Sisi in Egypt and it supports Assad in Syria, but it needs Italy’s consent to expand its influence on the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.”
“Russia may be testing the reaction of Italy in front of the growth of its military influence in the Mediterranean area.”
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- Arduino Paniccia, senior consultant in Strategic Studies for the Italian Army
In the case of China, he continues, Italy is the ideal country to be the southern-European branch of the Belt and Road Initiative, a gargantuan infrastructural project to connect Asia and Europe. A positive orientation of the public opinion is necessary to have the project implemented.
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Focusing on Italy’s political importance, the CIA World Facts Book highlights that Italy is the third largest economy of the Eurozone as well as the third country of the EU in terms of population. “Italy is an essential component of the US influence sphere”, adds Maronta, “This element is particularly important in these fluid times”.
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“Russia and China’s swift aid operations glow in front of the slowness of Brussels. They take advantage of the feeling of betrayal that Italians feel towards the EU”
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- General Enrico Pino, former head of the Historical Office of the Italian Army
The master of the Mediterranean Sea can be, however, the underbelly of Europe. All of Italy’s strategic potential accounts for nothing against a sweeping economic recession caused by the lockdown of all the production activities, nor it can fix the scarce solidarity from the EU. As Maronta pinpoints, the aftermath of the pandemic will bring a worse recession than 2008: The Italian government already trembles for clusters of social discontent in the South, poorer than the North.
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If the crisis impacts Italians’ wealth, the lack of EU solidarity mines their trust in its capacity and will to help them. Indeed, Italians may look to different actors with more hope.“Russia and China’s swift aid operations glow in front of the slowness of Brussels”, says General Pino, “They take advantage of the feeling of betrayal that Italians feel towards the EU and they will for sure exploit it in the future.”
“ ...Soft power- che*?”
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However grateful the Italians may be, there is still no end to their grief. The touted international aid is a teardrop in the Ocean: the curve of cases has just started to flatten, and the Italian government announced that a return to normal would be unlikely before June.
While Russia and China continue their sophisticated international operation to grow their geopolitical influence, it is not possible to know if any of the Italians trapped at home has ever heard of geopolitics or soft power. Actually, it is impossible to say if anyone can imagine a life beyond and other than the lockdown.
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In this dreadful period of home quarantine, where the normal, boring routine is now mourned, Italians have little choice but to sit in their balconies, stretch their legs and wait for their life to come back.
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* Italian abbreviation for “che cosa”: “what’s that”
About the Author
Barbara Polin, Italy
Barbara is a graduate student in International Relations from Italy. After an internship at the Institute of Cultural Relations Policy, she focused her academic and journalistic interests on the relations of China with the US and the Russian diplomacy with the EU.
