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China officially claims to hold a neutral stance on the war in Ukraine, but it is actually pro-Russia. Beijing has refused to condemn the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and opposed sanctions against Russia, Instead, China has provided an economic lifeline for Russia and benefited financially by purchasing Russian oil at discounted prices.
Beijing floated yet another vaguely worded peace plan for Ukraine-Russia last week, But what China has been pushing for in its various peace proposals is for a cease-fire that would freeze the existing front lines and the lifting of economic sanctions against Russia. Ukraine has rejected any plan that doesn’t call for the withdrawal of Russian troops from the occupied territories.
There was lots of tea-leaf reading when Peking University Professor Feng Yujun, an expert on Russia, wrote an op-ed for The Economist published April 11, in which he cited various factors advantageous to Ukraine that “make Russia’s eventual defeat inevitable.”
Feng indicated that China and Russia have diverging visions of the future of global affairs. He wrote:
Shrewd observers note that China’s stance towards Russia has reverted from the “no limits” stance of early 2022, before the war, to the traditional principles of “non-alignment, non-confrontation and non-targeting of third parties.
But don’t be fooled into thinking that one professor’s op-ed piece reflects any policy shift by China’s government regarding Ukraine. Just two days before the op-ed was published, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing in what The Associated Press described as “a sign of mutual support and shared opposition to Western democracies amid Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.”
During the past week, we’ve had sobering assessments from retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, Yale historian Timothy Snyder and Secretary of State Antony Blinken about how China sees its own interests linked to a Russian victory in Ukraine and how this alignment poses a threat to our democracy..
Clark, a former NATO supreme allied commander Europe, wrote a letter to President Joe Biden, published Thursday by the Atlantic Council, in which he described how the U.S. needs a new strategic approach fit for a new post-Cold War geopolitical era.
He said the U.S. needs to “face reality” about “an emerging, increasingly more closely aligned group of authoritarian powers deeply opposed to the US-led, rules-based international order.”
Clark wrote:
Russia—aligned with China, and now alongside Iran and supported by North Korea—is at the center of an effort to shatter American preeminence, redistribute global power, and divide up the world into spheres of influence. These powers are increasingly working together. As Chinese President Xi Jinping declared in bidding farewell to Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2023, together they are driving “changes” that “we haven’t seen for one hundred years.” Those changes refer to unwinding the global order. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s quest to take Taiwan are just two efforts among many by these actors that are aimed at reducing US influence and mitigating the laws, rules, and restrictions of the current international system.
Clark spoke about his memo to Biden in this interview aired Sunday night on MSNBC:
Snyder testified Wednesday at a hearing conducted by the House Oversight Committee on Chinese political warfare against the U.S.
Ahead of the hearing, he submitted a written statement in which he focused on how Chinese and Russian propaganda are working in tandem to undermine U.S. support for providing aid to Ukraine and spread disinformation about Biden to boost Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Snyder said that “the fundamental goal of Russian (and thus Chinese) propaganda is to prevent American action, thereby making America seem impotent and democracy pointless -- also in the eyes of Americans themselves.”
American failure in Ukraine will lead other powers to conclude that a feckless and divided United States will also fail to meet future challenges. The fundamental goal of Russian (and thus Chinese) propaganda is to prevent American action, thereby making America seem impotent and democracy pointless -- also in the eyes of Americans themselves.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine is intimately connected to a possible Chinese war of aggression against Taiwan. As Taiwanese leaders continually and urgently remind us, Ukrainian resistance deters Chinese aggression. Ukraine deters China in a way that the United States cannot, without taking any action that Beijing could interpret as provocative. A Russian victory in Ukraine, therefore, would clear the way for Chinese aggression in the Pacific.”
In his brief opening statement to the committee, Snyder provided specific examples of Russian propaganda picked up by China that ended up being echoed in Congress, including claims that Ukrainians are Nazis, Ukraine is corrupt, and the Biden bribe.
“Chinese political warfare includes praising members of this House who delay voting on Ukraine,” he said.
The aid package approved by the House on Saturday includes $8.1 billion for Taiwan and to counter China in the Indo-Pacific. It also would potentially force the sale of TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese firm.
And there are growing concerns about Chinese firms providing Russia with dual-use materials and weapons components that are being used to reconstitute its defense industrial base that had been hurt by sanctions.
Earlier this month, Biden raised these concerns in a telephone conversation with Xi. And this week Blinken is heading to Beijing to discuss the issue.
“We're prepared to take steps when we believe necessary against firms that ... severely undermine security in both Ukraine and Europe," a State Department official said at a press briefing ahead of Blinken's trip. "We've demonstrated our willingness to do so regarding firms from a number of countries, not just China.”
Blinken, speaking to reporters Friday after a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Capri, Italy, said China has not been providing lethal military weaponry to Russia as Iran and North Korea have been doing. That would have been a red line that might have resulted in sanctions against Beijing. that would have hurt China’s trade-dependent economy.
Blinken then said:
“But when it comes to Russia’s defense industrial base, the primary contributor in this moment to that is China. We see China sharing machine tools, semiconductors, other dual-use items that have helped Russia rebuild the defense industrial base that sanctions and export controls had done so much to degrade. Now, if China purports on the one hand to want good relations with Europe and other countries, it can’t on the other hand be fueling what is the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War.”
In the meeting’s closing communique, the G7 foreign ministers demanded that China put a stop to this support of Russia “as it will only prolong this illegal war of aggression … and increase the threat that Russia poses to its neighbors.”
Earlier this month, the Biden administration revealed intelligence findings that showed there had been a surge in in sales by Chinese businesses to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that are being used to produce weaponry for Russian forces in Ukraine, The Associated Press reported.
The AP wrote:
Two senior Biden administration officials, who discussed the sensitive findings on April 12 on the condition of anonymity, said that in 2023 about 90% of Russia’s microelectronics came from China, which Russia has used to make missiles, tanks and aircraft. Nearly 70% of Russia’s approximately $900 million in machine tool imports in the last quarter of 2023 came from China.
The officials said Chinese and Russian entities have been working to jointly produce drones inside Russia. Chinese firms have also been providing optical components for use in armored vehicles, engines that can be used in cruise missiles, and nitrocellulose which can be used in the manufacture of ammunition.
And all this has been going on while Ukraine has been struggling with weapon and ammunition shortages due to MAGA Republicans in the House, acting at Trump’s behest, to delay approval for months of Biden’s $61 billion aid package for Ukraine. The House finally approved the measure on Saturday and the Senate should pass it this week.
CNN reported:
“One of the most game changing moves available to us at this time to support Ukraine is to persuade the PRC (People’s Republic of China) to stop helping Russia reconstitute its military industrial base. Russia would struggle to sustain its war effort without PRC inputs,” said a senior administration official, adding that Chinese “materials are filling critical gaps in Russia’s defense production cycle.”
Just this week Gen. Chris Cavoli, the commander of US European Command, told lawmakers that Russia has been “quite successful” at reconstituting its military since it invaded Ukraine more than 2 years ago, and its capacity has largely “grown back” to what it was before the invasion. US officials are now making clear that China is largely responsible for that rapid build-up.
