It’s Time to Offer Russia an Offramp. China Can Help With That.

Casualties are mounting in Ukraine. Bombs continue to fall. More than 2 million refugees have fled the fighting.

Vladimir Putin seems to have assumed he could get a swift victory, underestimating the fierce resistance from Ukraine. Two weeks in, Russia is intensifying its assault on Ukraine, and Western nations in turn are intensifying their financial and economic punishments against Russia, including by triggering the financial “nuclear option” — banning some Russian banks from the SWIFT payment system. Meanwhile, Mr. Putin has put his actual nuclear forces on high alert.

We are now in an escalatory spiral. Mounting pressure on Mr. Putin will likely make the situation more dangerous as Russia’s leader feels pushed to take increasingly extreme measures — such as what we’ve seen in the past few days with the Russian army’s siege tactics and attacks on civilian areas.

And so, unpalatable as some in the West may find the idea, it is time to offer the Russian leader an offramp with China’s help. On Tuesday, President Xi Jinping of China held a virtual summit with President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, urging a diplomatic solution.

The United States and its allies might be reluctant to have China play any role in this crisis, given that they view Beijing as a strategic rival. That’s foolish and shortsighted; the conflict’s immediate dangers far outweigh any competitive considerations. Ukraine itself sees the potential of Chinese-led conflict resolution.

So far, China has called for dialogue and says it supports humanitarian aid efforts. But Beijing’s interests in more proactive involvement are growing by the day.

China has a significant economic interest in a quick resolution to the Russian-Ukrainian war. China enjoys strong ties with Russia and Ukraine and is both countries’ largest single trading partner, though each trades more with the E.U. bloc than with China. Russia and Ukraine are crucial components of the Belt and Road infrastructure program as well as conduits for China’s trade with Europe. China-Europe rail transports have experienced a hundredfold increase since the beginning of the 2010s, but the ongoing conflict threatens to disrupt these trade flows.

China is also uniquely positioned to act as a neutral mediator between a Western-supported Ukraine and Russia. Yes, Beijing and Moscow have a strong and growing relationship, especially in the economic realm. China’s demand for resources that Russia has in abundance — food and energy — as well as a mutual dissatisfaction with the current state of the U.S.-led world order have increasingly drawn the two countries together. This alliance was cemented when Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi met last month and issued a joint statement underscoring their deep ties and reaffirming a partnership with “no forbidden zones.”

It is not in Beijing’s interests to rely solely on an anti-Western alliance with Moscow. Russia may possess a mighty military, but its economy is in long-term structural decline, with a G.D.P. not much larger than that of Spain. For all the talk of ties with Moscow, it is worth remembering that China’s economic interests with Russia are dwarfed by those it shares with the West. In 2021, trade between China and Russia may have jumped by 36 percent compared to the prior year, to $147 billion — but that’s still less than a tenth of the combined trade with the United States (