WASHINGTON – NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Monday blasted China’s leader for covertly supporting Moscow and sending military supplies while publicly claiming to back Ukraine in its war with Russia.
“China is igniting the biggest armed conflict in Europe since World War II,” Stoltenberg said at an event at the Wilson Center in Washington. “At the same time, China wants to maintain good relations with the West.”
“Well, Beijing can’t have both.”
Since the Russian aggression began in February 2022, China has publicly expressed its desire for peace and maintained an officially neutral stance.
As recently as June 3, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning asserted that Beijing “attaches importance to its strategic partnership with Ukraine.”
“Since the Ukraine crisis began to deepen, China has maintained communication and cooperation with Ukraine,” she said. “China remains Ukraine’s largest trading partner. The Chinese Embassy in Ukraine continues to function normally.”
But China is also Russia’s largest trading partner, a position solidified by the imposition of sanctions on imports and exports to and from Russia by dozens of countries around the world.
China maintains it has not sent any weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine, but U.S. officials say Beijing is making that distinction meaningless by supplying Moscow with technological components vital to the war.
“Publicly, [Chinese] President Xi Jinping [Jinping] “Russia is trying to create the impression that it is standing behind in this conflict in order to circumvent sanctions and keep trade flowing,” Stoltenberg said on Monday.
Beijing also sends materials to China used in the production of weapons, including “missiles and tanks.” [and] According to the NATO Secretary General, they are “aircraft.”
“Beijing is sharing high-end technology such as semiconductors and dual-use products. Last year, Russia imported 90 percent of its microelectronics from China,” he said. “China is also working to provide Russia with supply capabilities and improved imaging.”
“All of this has enabled so much death and destruction in Ukraine, strengthened Russia’s defense industrial base, and evaded the effects of sanctions and export controls.”
This has caught the attention of the United States, which last week imposed sanctions on seven China-based companies for exporting millions of dollars’ worth of supplies to Russia, including items that could be used for weapons systems.
“The idea that you can separate the threat that Russia poses to Europe from the threat or challenge that China and Xi Jinping pose to the Asia-Pacific is a mistake,” Stoltenberg said. “Our security is not regional, it’s global, and that’s been very clearly demonstrated in Ukraine.”
China says it respects Ukraine’s territorial integrity, a rationale it uses to justify its illegal claims to vast swathes of the South China Sea, including Taiwan.
But China has not pressured Russian dictator Vladimir Putin to return Crimea to Ukraine or begged his proxies to return the eastern Donbas region to Kyiv.
China has made other pro-Russian moves, pushing a controversial peace plan last year that would have seen Ukraine cave in to Russian demands with little in return.
The United States has condemned the ceasefire proposal, with National Security Council spokesman John Kirby saying the peace plan “sounds good, but [China] … will be one-sided and will reflect only Russia’s point of view.”
Last weekend, China ignored a peace summit in Lucerne, Switzerland, attended by representatives of more than 100 countries and international organizations.
Beijing declined the invitation after learning that Moscow would not be sending a representative.
“China has repeatedly stressed that the international peace conference must meet three key elements: recognition from both Russia and Ukraine, equal participation of all parties, and fair discussion of all peace proposals,” Mao said. “As far as China is concerned, it seems that the conference has not yet met these three elements, and that is precisely why China cannot participate in the conference.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told summit attendees on Saturday that he hopes the next summit will also include Russia and possibly China.
