Editor’s Note for Thursday, March 24, 2022

Dear reader,

Our word of the day is “no forbidden areas, but a bottom line” (没有禁区但有底线 méiyǒu jìnqū dàn yǒu dǐxiàn). China’s ambassador to the U.S., Qín Gāng 秦刚, used this phrase yesterday (in Chinese) to clarify the “no limits” interpretation of China-Russia ties stemming from the two countries’ February 4 joint statement.

That joint statement was released in full in Chinese by the Chinese foreign ministry, and in English by the Kremlin, but China has never released its own English-language version. The line where the countries state — just 20 days before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine — that “Friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation,” has undoubtedly proved a headache for Beijing. Joseph Webster wrote on The China Project that Beijing “engaged in some damage control” throughout February, but Qin seems aware that the damage is sticking, particularly in Washington, where he is based.

It’s unclear if the PR effort will be effective, not least because Qin defines the bottom line as “the tenets and principles of the United Nations Charter, the recognized basic norms of international law and international relations” — especially when 141 countries voted at the UN to condemn Russia’s invasion the week after it began.