Harold James

If war in Ukraine is to end any time soon, the relationship between Moscow and Beijing will prove crucial. A relatively benign scenario is that China might become increasingly frustrated by the protracted war, and by the obvious incompetence and spectacular inhumanity of Putin’s military offensive. It would be rational for president Xi Jinping to tell the Russian autocrat that he has to stop. But there is a much darker, more frightening, scenario in the history books that could point to what happens next. That precedent is the story of the development, and increasing belligerence, of Imperial Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II before 1914.

Suez is long remembered as a critical moment in Britain’s imperial decline. Might future historians say something similar about Russia's invasion of Ukraine? There are a number of striking parallels between Britain's relationship with the United States in the 1950s and Russia's ties with China today. Britain's rash move to reclaim the Suez Canal from Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, was – as with president Putin's invasion of Ukraine – conducted without any substantial prior consultation with its key ally. In Russia's case, it was China that had no warning. But during the Suez crisis, it was the United States which had its nose put out of joint.