cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/5291198
“Instead of taking responsibility for peace and security in the world as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China is opposing our core European interests with its economic and weapons aid to Russia,” German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said in an emailed statement before departing Berlin airport on Sunday for her two-day visit to Beijing.
Vladimir “Putin’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine is a direct threat to our peace. I will also speak in Beijing about the fact that we cannot simply ignore this in our relations with China.”
The European Union is proposing to sanction several Chinese firms that it claims helped Russian companies develop attack drones that were deployed against Ukraine. Baerbock will meet her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing to address this issue, her spokesman said. Germany’s top diplomat will also discuss the humanitarian situation in China, as well as EU tariffs against Chinese electric vehicles that were introduced in October.
Addition:
China Is Studying Russia’s Sanctions Evasion to Prepare for Taiwan Conflict – (Archived link)
China has been supporting Russia’s economy since the start of the Ukraine war by buying its oil while supplying it with everything from microelectronics to washing machines.
Meanwhile, Beijing has been getting its own strategic benefit: a real-world case study in how to circumvent Western sanctions.
An interagency group, set up by China in the months following the full-scale invasion, has studied the impact of sanctions and produced reports regularly for the country’s leadership, according to people familiar with the matter. The goal is to draw lessons about how to mitigate them, particularly in case a conflict over Taiwan prompts the U.S. and its allies to impose similar penalties on China, the people said.
As part of the effort, Chinese officials periodically visit Moscow to meet with the Russian Central Bank, the Finance Ministry and other agencies involved in countering sanctions, the people said.
The Chinese study effort, which hasn’t previously been reported, is emblematic of the new age of economic warfare unleashed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where the lines between economic policy and geopolitical strategy are increasingly blurred. That trend is only likely to be amplified by Donald Trump’s second presidential term, where he plans to turbocharge the use of tariffs as a tool for negotiation and coercion.
Alright. I’m a huge supporter of Ukraine here. But the west has been collectively providing Ukraine with a metric fucktonne of weapons. Russia is clearly the aggressor, at fault, and fucking evil. But if we can send weapons to Ukraine, Russia acquiring weapons elsewhere is probably fair game. That doesn’t mean we can’t apply economic or political pressure.
In many ways, this war dragging on for a long time is actually in Chinese interests, as far as I can tell. It makes the west war-weary making it less likely we can sustain another conflict should China decide to engage over Taiwan or similar. And it increases Russian reliance on China in the longer term. The only thing China is likely unhappy about here is NK’s increasingly large role (moving into Russian sphere of influence).
But unless we’re willing to actually sanction China, the west will just complain and do nothing.