China’s already complex relationship with Russia strained by Ukraine war

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The meeting between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing last week cast a spotlight on Beijing’s stance toward Moscow and the war in Ukraine.

The stance is opaque, complicated and uneasy.

Despite lacking a formal alliance, China and Russia 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 its 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.

Data suggests that Chinese firms’ exports of dual-use components to Russian counterparts have soared, 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 driving factors behind Russia’s ability to churn out weapons, vehicles and other tools of war.

Beijing argues that, unlike the West, it has exported actual weaponry to neither combatant and has continually called for peace talks and Western diplomatic engagement with Russia.

Mr. Xi also has spoken with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and supplied humanitarian aid.

Some Chinese commentators have condemned the Kremlin’s aggression, and a recent high-profile article predicted 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.” He said the war there has “a very significant negative impact on security in Europe.”

President Biden and European leaders followed Mr. Scholz’s pleas with similar urgings.

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 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 in June, with Ukraine and some 100 supportive nations reportedly invited. Russia, which was not invited, has described the conference as “ridiculous.”

Mr. Xi 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 and armored fighting vehicles.

Russia’s artillery-centric army, burning through munitions, is running short. That is apparent in Moscow’s turn toward two states that are heavily sanctioned and anti-West. Iran has supplied combat drones, and North Korea has sent shells and tactical missiles.

China has not supplied weapons, but the U.S. says it is 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,” the Asia Society wrote 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.

It also has not stopped China from supplying dual-use components to Russia.

Two Biden administration officials who briefed The Associated Press in Washington this month 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, AP reported.

Those components are not subject to Western sanctions.

A recent report by The Wall Street Journal found that a Chinese firm also supplies Ukraine with “tens of thousands” of drones and related parts.

China shows its unease

Beijing is showing signs that it 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. Zelenskyy. 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.

The Asia Society said 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 said.

He wrote that the meeting this month between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey 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.”