En this spring of 2024, Xi Jinping recalled that he was involved in the conflict raging in Europe: he is on the Russian side. The Chinese president wants to support his “friend” Vladimir Putin in his war against Ukraine. Or, more precisely, Xi intends for the West not to emerge strengthened from this ordeal on the Old Continent. There is no point in maintaining irresponsible illusions in Washington, Paris or Berlin: the Sino-Russian couple is not about to divorce.
This message was transmitted unambiguously by the Chinese number one during his stay in Europe (May 6 to 10) then, in its crystal clear clarity, proclaimed during the Russian president’s visit to Beijing (May 16 and 17). The joint declaration signed by the two heads of state is based on the fight they are waging together against the United States.
This involves increasing trade between their two countries in the face of a “hostile and destructive American policy » intended, according to them, to “to stem » the rise of China and Russia – in the South China Sea, where the Middle Kingdom’s war fleet is terrorizing its neighbors; in Europe, where the Russian army has undertaken to carve up Ukraine.
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This situation requires reinforced cooperation on the military level. China will further support the war economy that Putin is establishing in Russia. Officially, Beijing does not deliver weapons to Russia, but provides the machine tools needed to manufacture weapons – that’s very different, isn’t it… It delivers spare parts for Russian fighter bombers. It sells semiconductors for dual use (civil and military). It transmits satellite information useful to the battlefield. Clearly, China is supporting the Russian war effort.
“Dilute” American power
The regime did not condemn the aggression against Ukraine – even if it recognized neither the annexation of Crimea nor that of Donbass by Putinian Russia. Xi warned Putin against the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the Donbass plains. But Beijing repeats the biggest lies of the Kremlin’s propaganda: the war against kyiv is because the West, eternally imperialist, was preparing to attack Russia from Ukraine!
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On a more general economic level, the two countries have established a remarkable partnership. The Chinese buy, at discounted prices, the hydrocarbons that Russia no longer sells to Europeans and they flood the Russian market, neglected by Western firms, with cars, mobile telephony, electric batteries and other products with high added value. In 2023, trade between the two countries will reach 240 billion dollars (221 billion euros), denominated in yuan, not greenbacks.
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