Beijing is “picking a side” and can’t claim to be neutral any more, the US ambassador to NATO tells POLITICO.
China is helping Russia meet its war goals in Ukraine by continuing to sell supplies such as drone technology and gunpowder ingredients to Moscow, the U.S. Ambassador to NATO said in an interview.
“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] cannot claim to be entirely neutral in this case, [and] they are in fact picking a side,” Julianne Smith told POLITICO on Tuesday. “I think when the PRC tries to portray itself as neutral, when it comes to this war, we don’t buy it.”
Smith said the United States was “increasingly seeing materiel support” from China to Russia, adding that this equipment — which can have both civilian and military uses — had played a critical role in helping Moscow achieve some of its aims against Ukraine.
China’s accurately balancing it’s profits. It can sell much more products to it’s primary markets if it gets resources from Russia and get some bonus on also selling sanctioned or illegal stuff with a huge margin. Can NATO or other structure condition it to back off a little? Probably yes since a lot of banks started to slow down or deny processing payments from russian corporations. Can it stop it completely? Probably not, but with every new barrier, the russian economy suffers from underdelivery and overpaying for a banal stuff.
NATO economies are probably much more profitable for China. If NATO wanted to get serious about supporting Ukraine we would be sanctioning not only Russia, but also countries that don’t sanction Russia. China and India would quickly change their policy on Russian trade.
Till there is petroleum in Russia neither China nor India is going to change their relationship with Russia. I don’t think even European nations have completely stopped relying on Russia for their energy needs.
Trump has started a trade war with China for no reason and Biden didn’t stop it either. China has no interest in doing favours to the West.
And China trade is profitable for NATO countries. Is China not sanctioning Russia expensive enough, in terms of additionally needed support to Ukraine, to warrant the massive global fallout that such a move could have?
If you ask me such a move would be too principled for its own good. Everyone, literally everyone, is busy fucking Russia one way or the other right now for the simple reason that Russia now is a beggar, not a chooser. Are they sanctioning as hard no but in the end it still amounts to significant pressure and it’s the total impact, duration, and steadfastness that counts, not the symbolism.
Also China isn’t right-out helping Russia like NK does, if they did they’d be sending over tanks instead of literal golf carts.
Yeah China isn’t thinking economically here, they’re thinking geopolitically. The smart choice would’ve been to back Ukraine, which is in line with their positions on sovereignty, and then criticize the US on Palestine now from a moral high ground. It would’ve also created closer economic ties with the West, and cemented a rivalry status versus an adversary status.
Both China and Russia don’t seem to understand that the world order has changed. You don’t become a superpower or powerful nation by conquering land or being aggressive military. You have to achieve economic dominance, which China actually was doing rather successfully. Their antagonism has spurred economic development in other areas now.
That isn’t to say that military power is useless. But it’s more powerful when it’s used as soft power, not an actual conquering army.