The meeting between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing this week has cast a bright spotlight on Beijing’s stance toward Moscow and the war in Ukraine.
And it’s a stance that is opaque, complicated, and uneasy.
Despite lacking a formal alliance, China and Russia both have aligned themselves against the West. They conduct periodic joint military drills, including air and sea patrols in the East China Sea and Sea of Japan, and naval exercises in the Pacific and Indian oceans.
The U.S. and allies have been irked by China’s refusal to bluntly condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Biden administration has repeatedly warned Beijing against assisting Russia in the Ukraine war, now in its third year.
But recent data suggest that Chinese firms’ export of dual-use components to Russian counterparts have soared, in essence helping those companies build materials for the Kremlin’s war machine. Indeed, U.S. officials said recently that Beijing is the primary contributor to Moscow’s defense industrial base, and that China’s contributions are a driving factor behind Russia’s ability to churn out new weapons, vehicles, and other tools of war.
But Beijing argues that, unlike the West, it has exported actual weaponry to neither combatant, and has continually called for peace talks and for Western diplomatic engagement with Russia.
Mr. Xi also has spoken with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and supplied humanitarian aid.
Some Chinese commentators have even condemned the Kremlin’s aggression, with one recent high-profile article predicting Russia’s defeat.
War of Words
According to reports from Beijing, Mr. Scholz, on a four-day visit, called on Mr. Xi to “contribute more to a just peace in Ukraine,” stating that the war there has “a very significant negative impact on security in Europe.”
Mr. Scholz’s pleas followed similar urgings from President Biden and European leaders.
During a two-hour phone call with Mr. Xi this month, Mr. Biden “raised concerns over [China’s] support for Russia’s defense industrial base and its impact on European and transatlantic security,” per a White House readout of the conversation.
In response to Mr. Scholz, Mr. Xi this week reiterated China’s commitment to “all efforts conducive to peaceful resolution of the [Ukraine] crisis, as well as the timely convening of an international peace conference recognized by both Russia and Ukraine.”
Switzerland is promoting a peace conference in Geneva this June, with Ukraine and some 100 supportive nations reportedly invited. Russia has described the conference, to which it is not invited, as “ridiculous.”
Mr. Xi also asked Mr. Scholz “not to pour fuel on the fire” and told Mr. Biden that “he who tied the bell to the tiger must take it off.”
Both phrases refer to the West’s arming of Ukraine.
Western capitals have funneled weapons of all kinds to Kyiv, including anti-tank guided missiles, artillery, armored fighting vehicles, and much more.
Russia’s artillery-centric army, burning through munitions, is clearly running short. That is apparent in Moscow’s turn toward two states that are heavily sanctioned and anti-West: Iran has supplied combat drones, North Korea has sent shells and tactical missiles.
China, conversely, has not supplied weapons. But the U.S. says it is still aiding the Russian defense base.
“When it comes to weapons, what we’ve seen, of course, is North Korea and Iran primarily providing things to Russia. But when it comes to Russia’s defense industrial base, the primary contributor in this moment to that is China,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters Friday while traveling in Italy. “We see China sharing machine tools, semiconductors, other dual-use items that have helped Russia rebuild the defense industrial base that [Western] sanctions and export controls had done so much to degrade.”
China’s careful measuring of its actions, experts say, is partly because of a strategic vulnerability unknown in Moscow, Pyongyang and Tehran that constrains Beijing’s freedom of action: Its economy is deeply embedded in global trade.
“Continued economic and technological support for Russia runs the risk of international sanctions being extended to China,” wrote the Asia Society in a 2023 commentary.
In his recent responses to Mr. Biden, Mr. Xi was reportedly testy about the issue of Western sanctions.
Beijing’s caution, however, has not prevented it from upgrading trade with Moscow. According to Reuters, China-Russia trade hit $240.1 billion in 2023, an uptick of 26.3% from 2022. Moreover, fully half of Russia’s oil shipments in 2023 went to China, the report noted.
Nor has it stopped it from supplying dual-use components to Russia.
Two Biden administration officials who briefed the Associated Press in Washington last week claimed Russia is sourcing 90% of its microelectronics and 70% of its machine tool imports from China.
Both are essential to arms industries. Chinese firms have also sold drones to Russia and optics suitable for armored vehicles, the AP reported.
Those components are not subject to Western sanctions.
Moreover, a recent report by the Wall St. Journal found that a Chinese firm is also supplying Ukraine with “tens of thousands” of drones and related parts.
China shows its unease
There are signs that Beijing is troubled by the bloody conflict in Ukraine.
Mr. Putin met with Mr. Xi in Beijing on Feb. 4, 2022, and declared a bilateral “unlimited friendship.” Twenty days later, his Russian army invaded Ukraine.
As the war dragged on without the swift Russian victory many predicted, the term “unlimited friendship” disappeared from Chinese state media. In June 2022, a leading pro-Russia diplomat, Le Yucheng, was demoted.
China’s Red Cross started deploying humanitarian aid to Ukraine in 2022.
In April 2023, Mr. Xi called Mr. Zelensky. Mr. Xi told him that “mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity is the political foundation of China-Ukraine relations,” according to an official Beijing readout of the call, adding that China’s “core stance is to facilitate talks for peace.”
In May 2023, a Chinese delegation visited Kyiv.
None of this makes Beijing actively anti-Moscow, as it remains focused on a broader global agenda.
According to the Asia Society, China still sees its “undeclared alliance with Russia” as a way to “reshape the Western-dominated global order and bolster authoritarianism at home and abroad.”
Yet, some loud voices seem to have been given permission, or at least tacit approval, to criticize Russia.
A leading Chinese academic has a commentary in the latest edition of The Economist titled: “Russia is sure to lose in Ukraine.”
The academic, Feng Yujun, a professor at China’s leading educational institute, Peking University, also directs the Center for Russian and Central Asian Studies at Fudan University, a public college in Shanghai.
Mr. Feng called Russia’s defeat “inevitable.” The invasion has had the unintended consequence of rejuvenating NATO, and could even ignite reforms in the United Nations Security Council, he argued.
He wrote that last week’s meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Chinese counterpart Wang Yi was “more a diplomatic effort by Russia to show it is not alone than a genuine love-in.”
Mr. Feng warned: “China’s relations with Russia are not fixed, and they have been affected by the events of the past two years.”
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.