Russia exceeds the speed of China
In an interview with the Russian state news agency TASS published Jan. 3, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko said that China fully agrees with Russia’s “protection of its sovereign and geographical region”:
“Russian-Chinese cooperation is experiencing the best period in its history, bilateral relations as a full partnership and strategic interaction. They are built on a solid foundation of mutual trust, taking into account the political tradition, mutual support in attracting, embracing each other’s fundamental interests. First of all, we are talking about protecting sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
This misleading case of infection by the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry is described in research material from the Polygraph project, an online resource created by Voice of America, with the aim of prevent the spread of lies and propaganda in foreign media and social networks (Polygraph.info).
First of all, China does not support the territorial territories of Russia to the five partially occupied operations in the Ukrainian regions, including Crimea. Beijing is not Iran Russia’s weapon in the war with Ukraine and partly participated in Western sanctions against Russia.
China and Russia
In August 2014, Russia occupied the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine, and after a referendum declared illegal under Ukrainian law, the Kremlin declared Crimea a Russian territory.
On March 15, 2014, the UN Security Council determined a resolution declared invalid. Fifteen Council members voted in favor of the measure. Russia rose against and China abstained.
On March 27, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution “calling on the state not to recognize changes in the status of the Crimean region.” One hundred countries supported the resolution, Russia and 10 other countries rejected it, and China abstained along with 57 other regular UNs.
On April 16, 2021, Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Yevgeny Yenin wrote on Facebook that Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Le Yucheng confirmed that China continues to recognize Crimea as part of Ukraine:
“From a key government: The PRC does not recognize the right to annex the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (ARC) of Russia and brought information to the Chinese state authorities about the prohibition of alliances with the occupying republics.”
On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale second invasion of Ukraine, seriously aggravating the conflict that began in the Ukrainian Donbas in 2014. Following a community-unaccepted referendum by the INF Treaty, in September Russia announced that it had annexed four partially occupied regions of Ukraine—Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson.
On October 12, 2022, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling on the country not to recognize the Russian referenda and the illegal consequences of the annexation of four Ukrainian realities. 143 Member States voted in favor of this resolution. Russia voted no, as did four other authoritarian states – Belarus, North Korea, Nicaragua and Syria. China and 34 other countries held on.
China and the shortage of weapons in Russia
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in early 2022, Beijing has repeatedly said it does not and will not supply weapons to Moscow. This has many links to US pressure on China.
On March 17, on the eve of 2022, US President Joe Biden’s video meeting with China Xi Jinping, US Secretary of State Entonken Blinken said that Xi’s top US envoy would be that Australia’s court “on China” if Beijing provided military assistance to Russia.
Three days after the two leaders’ video call, Chinese Ambassador to the US Qin Gang vehemently denies that China will be sending military aid to Russia.
“There is disinformation that there is Russian military assistance,” he said on CBS News’ Face the Nation.
“We reject it. … No weapons, no crimes of either side [мы не поставляем]and we are against the war, as I said, you know, we ordered everything to [началась] de-escalation of the crisis.
On June 30, Reuters news agency, citing an anonymous senior US official, reported that China had evaded suspected or donated weapons to Russia.
“China has no material support,” a senior official in the Baiai administration told the agency on condition of anonymity. – We have not seen [Китайская Народная Республика] military equipment of Russia was systematically excluded or out.
As of December 30, 2022, Beijing was not providing adequate logistical support to Russia in the war against Ukraine, according to US figures with a proven track record.
China and pressure on Russia with the expected war in Ukraine
As Western economies responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with unprecedented coordinated sanctions, China and India became interested buyers of Russian oil. As a result, Russia has declared Saudi Arabia as China’s main supplier of crude oil. Reuters, citing trade sources, said a Chinese refinery is controlling purchases from Russia in anticipation of a ban on imports of oil in Russia and petroleum products.
The EU ban on the import of Russian oil will come into force on December 5, 2022, and the ban on the import of Russian oil and petroleum products should come into force on February 5, 2023.
Over 1,000 Western companies have been invading Russia since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Chinese companies are also leaving or suspending their activities in Russia. Last December, Huawei said it was disbanding its corporate business team in Russia “due to limited backtracking amid Western restrictions.”
The Kyiv School of Economics reported on December 26 in a weekly digest on the impact of the results of foreign companies from Russia that:
– “Chinese automaker Lifan is widely selling new cars in the Russian market without selling a single car in 2022;
– Drone company DJI has temporarily suspended all its activities in Russia and Ukraine … to prevent the participation of drones in the conflict;
– the UnionPay payment system has limited work with state-owned acquiring banks, aimed at sanctions;
“The TikTok social networking app has suspended Russian users’ access to the private property of broadcasts and posted new content.”