Is China changing its stance on Russia, and quietly beginning to take Ukraine’s side in the war? The answer is of course no, but that’s the startling question I found myself asking – which I would have thought preposterous only a short time ago – because of two surprising pieces of information, both relating to the Chinese commercial drone manufacturer DJI.
Firstly, I heard last week from a reliable source that DJI – whose drones have been used extensively by both Ukraine and Russia – is now allowing the sale of their drones to individuals and companies in Ukraine. Previously, DJI drones had to be purchased illicitly by third parties in countries like Poland, before being transported into Ukraine.
This was interesting, but not much to go on. While I thought it would be very unlikely for DJI to have acted without Chinese government sanction (especially since its government connection is well known and given their products are ‘dual use’), this only led me to wonder whether this was a sign that China was trying to soften criticism in the event of it allowing military drones to be sold to Russia, as the U.S. thought they might. After all, supplying both sides with drones could be a middle course, of sorts.
Then this Friday it was reported that DJI is no longer allowing the sale of its drones to Russia – and has even prevented users in Russia downloading the necessary drone control app. (DJI previously claimed they weren’t supplying drones to Russia, although in reality they could still be bought there.)
But is this really a reflection of a change in Chinese government policy? If it is, we wouldn’t get an announcement from the CCP. That’s not how they do things – even the end of lockdown barely rated a mention. But there are hints of such a change, through shifts in tone and emphasis.
Firstly, consider China’s actions around the time of the full-scale invasion last February. At the Beijing Winter Olympics, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping issued a joint statement, essentially repeating earlier diplomatic statements, which included the following line:
Friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of co-operation.
With over 150,000 Russian troops on Ukraine’s borders, this was widely taken as a green light for the full-scale invasion that Russia launched three weeks later. At the same time, China emphasised Russia’s “legitimate security concerns” and the dangers of “expanding military blocs” in discussions between China’s “top diplomat” Wang Yi and U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in January and February. This was code for the key Russian talking point: their claimed fears of NATO influence and expansion, a spurious justification for the invasion that I’ve previously addressed. As well as repeating this argument through diplomatic channels, it was promoted domestically by Chinese state-owned media. They were echoing the Russian line.
The reason for this is, arguably, that China took the view that a quick and successful Russian invasion would be a helpful step towards China’s seemingly unswerving goal of conquering Taiwan, since such a fait accompli would only have stirred up apathy from the likes of Germany and France (as in 2014), resulting in strongly-worded communiqués rather than meaningful actions. Such a precedent, with the West divided and impotent, would have offered China a clear opportunity to strike its island neighbour in the near future, besides furthering China’s grander ambitions to break Western (and particularly U.S.) strategic dominance.
But then it all went a bit pear-shaped. I will quote at length from Patricia M. Kim, writing in Foreign Affairs:
The most damaging consequence of Russia’s aggression for China is the heightened global awareness and sense of urgency about Taiwan. Preventing Taiwan from becoming “the next Ukraine” has become a topic of grave concern, not just in Washington but among U.S. allies in Europe and Asia, many of whom once viewed Taiwan’s fate as only vaguely relevant, if at all, to their own security or a matter too politically sensitive to discuss. A record number of lawmakers from countries including Australia, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States have visited Taipei in the last year to express support for the island. Fears about Chinese and Russian revisionism have strengthened ties between NATO and the United States’ Indo-Pacific allies, as well. Last year, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea participated in a NATO summit for the first time. Leaders there jointly recognised the danger of conflict in the Taiwan Strait and called for greater coordination among like-minded European and Asian partners.
There is far more at stake for China than just Taiwan, but I believe Taiwan is the key to understanding the more recent statements and actions of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The problem for China is that its earlier statements on Ukraine have seriously undercut its own political and diplomatic stance towards Taiwan, in a manner that looks deeply hypocritical. China’s claim is that Taiwan is part of its own sovereign territory (the ‘One China’ principle), and in fact this claim has been partly upheld, albeit deliberately ambiguously, by the U.S. and others with a variety of interpretations since President Nixon’s momentous visit to China in 1972. Taiwan was expelled from the UN in 1971, and only 14 countries have full diplomatic relations with it – and even those are mostly micronations. Thus China’s claim has some merit, even if it ignores the principle of self-determination and the obvious point that Taiwan is a de facto sovereign nation.
However, by supporting the invasion of Ukraine on the same kind of spurious ‘security’ grounds that led to the similarly unjust invasion of Iraq in 2003, it undermines China’s own attempts to portray itself as a respectable and law-abiding member of the international community whose claims of sovereignty over Taiwan should be respected, and makes rather a mockery of its favourite line, that the West is hypocritical, the ‘rules-based international order’ is a sham, and that Western dominance should end – a line that goes down very well in some parts of the world.
It’s therefore not surprising to see a change in recent statements from China, in which it now emphasises the need to respect the sovereignty of all nations, above any of these ‘legitimate security concerns’. China’s proposed peace plan for Ukraine, presented at the recent Munich Security Conference by Wang Yi, lists respect for sovereignty as number one of a 12-point plan. That this relates to Taiwan as much as to Ukraine was made explicit by Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning last Thursday, in response to a question about Ukraine:
The U.S. keeps saying that territorial sovereignty must be respected, but on the Taiwan question, the U.S. has been walking on the edge and pushing the envelope.
In other words, business as usual: the U.S. is a hypocrite. (No mention of Tibet, of course.)
Another hint of a change in relations with Moscow might be in the unusual meeting between Putin and Wang Yi. Normally, foreign ministers meet other foreign ministers, and heads of government meet other heads of government, etc. But Putin chose to receive Wang Yi himself, after Wang’s meeting with Sergei Lavrov – which carries the suggestion of an unequal and needy relationship. Russia has since said that Xi plans to visit Moscow, but Beijing has notably not confirmed this (although much the same happened last year).
However, I don’t think any of that explains the sudden clampdown on commercial drone sales to Russia, which happened only recently, a long time (politically) after China’s peace plan was drafted and presented. Wang Yi presented the peace plan in Munich on the February 18th, and then the embarrassing news about Russian officials being in talks with the Chinese manufacturer Xian Bingo to buy 100 “kamikaze drones” came to light a week later. It’s conceivable that China wasn’t aware of these negotiations at the appropriate governmental level (or at all), had not given approval, and felt that the Russians involved (who may even have been ‘freelancing’) were a menace. Or perhaps they are just angry with Russia that they got found out. But for whatever reason, it seems this has prompted Beijing to issue a ukase to drone manufacturers to cease any dealings with Russia – while allowing some commercial drone sales to Ukraine, just to make a point.
That would be my interpretation, without knowing whatever information the U.S. seems to have on the matter. If so, it would be a zero-cost way for China to avoid any unfortunate conflict with the U.S., while at the same time asserting to Russia that it won’t get publicly dragged into what looks increasingly like an unwinnable war in Ukraine. As an optimist, I can perhaps hold out some hope that Xi will agree to Zelenskyy’s request for a meeting, but given China’s strategic alliance with Russia, the best I can take from this is that any fears I might have had of China directly supplying military equipment to Russia have been largely allayed.
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Yawn.
China supplied me with drones. I buy them on the internet.
“Is China changing its stance on Russia, and quietly beginning to take Ukraine’s side in the war?”
No, but were ever there’s money to be made!
War is War, its very profitable
It is a shame on India they have remained sympathetic to Russia for so long and seemingly got closer over the past 12 months.
You mean it’s a shame that India is fiercely resistant to western cultural colonisation and would benefit from the humiliation of the US in Ukraine and the huge profits it’s making because of the sanctions, and so looks after itself and its own people rather than supporting a foreign power with a track record of destroying countries for the financial benefit of a few billionaires?
How odd that they should choose to do that
It is all a bit of an extrapolation, and perhaps China just wants to make you think that anyway…
But I am sure that anything to do with China is rather likely to be planned, and that Taiwan is one of their major political goals.
“The problem for China is that its earlier statements on Ukraine have seriously undercut its own political and diplomatic stance towards Taiwan, in a manner that looks deeply hypocritical.”
Wait, China has a diplomatic stance towards Taiwan?!
Wait, Xi is worried about looking hypocritical on the world stage?!
Ian, you make me laugh.
He does take more than a few shots in the dark does our Ian. The usual TLDR of these articles is “I don’t have any information whatsoever but here’s why I think that something I wish was true is true.”
Or maybe China recently (20 Feb 23) got sight of Putin’s Union Plan Strategy Document?
The Union Plan
‘….the strategy document, according to one Western official with direct knowledge of its construction, belongs to the Presidential Directorate for Cross-Border Cooperation, a subdivision of Putin’s Presidential Administration, which was established five years ago.
The rather innocuously named directorate’s actual task is to exert control over neighboring countries that Russia sees as in its sphere of influence: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova.
The directorate is headed by Alexey Filatov, who reports directly to Dmitri Kozak, the deputy chief of the Presidential Administration.
Filatov’s team was tasked to come up with new strategies that would detail Russia’s strategic goals in all six countries, relying on the resources and input of most of the vital Russian state institutions.
According to a Western intelligence officer with direct knowledge of the strategy document, Russia’s domestic, foreign and military intelligence services — the FSB, SVR, GRU, respectively — in addition to the General Staff of the Armed Forces, all actively contributed to the Union State plan.
The resulting document was presented to Kozak in the fall of 2021’
20 Feb 2023
That must be true – no Western intelligence agency would ever lie about the intentions of a foreign government to justify military action. How fortunate our brave spooks managed to dig this one out just when people are starting to question the benefit of protracted proxy war in Ukraine.
Corroborated elsewhere…
‘While the 9th Directorate of the FSB’s Fifth Service Department for Operational Information prepared for the occupation of Ukraine from July 2021, the 11th Unit of the Department for Operational Information, responsible for Moldova, was assessing plans for the next round of operations under the direction of Major General Dmitry Milyutin. In November 2020, the FSB’s strategic objective in Moldova was to bring about ‘The full restoration of the strategic partnership between Moldova and the Russian Federation’.
FSB Outline of Operational Aims and Means, 21 November 2021.
You may be talking to the wrong people…..
‘Nearly three-quarters (74%) of respondents approved of EU support for Ukraine—33% strongly and 41% somewhat—with the highest numbers in Sweden (97%), Finland (95%), the Netherlands (93%), Portugal (92%) and Denmark (92%).’
Eurobarometer 09 Feb 23
Enjoy the Pyschki….
Sure
…same study showed overwhelmingly people opposed to troops on the ground, and air strikes….
Of course people feel great sympathy for the ordinary Ukrainian, but that doesn’t transfer to wanting to go to war, or to sending their children to die for Ukraine….
Treble pyshkies all round….
That would be why NATO is not and never will be going to war with Russia, putting troops on the ground or conducting air strikes, except under Article 5…..which the Union Plan will eventually trigger unless Putin is halted in Ukraine.
…is it just me or have we broken him?
You’ve certainly broken your projections.
China would probably like to get back the land north of the Amur river which it lost in the 1860s including where there is now the port of Vladivostock
As we have been told for years that anything with a microchip made in China is spying on us then I assume the drones are no different.
Anything they see will be reported back to China and the highest bidder.
Probably the Chinese can spot a winner.
For all the Pyschki on here:
‘Describing Russia’s offensive on Kyiv last year, you said that all wars start similarly. How do they end? What are the scenarios for the end of this war?
(O): All wars end at the negotiating table. What is said at this table will depend on what the parties come to. In any case, there will be a winning and losing countries.
What can be considered a loss and a victory today? I don’t know. How can burn territory or killing people, for example, be considered a victory?
(S): Even if we push the enemy beyond the state border, I will never consider it a victory. This is the cessation of the war for a certain period, no more.
(O): A complete victory can only be the destruction of the entire system that exists there. Because to have a time bomb nearby…
(I): As for the negotiating table: do you think there are territorial compromises that would be acceptable to Ukrainian society?
(O): No, there can be no compromises. No giving something away to get something in return. There are fixed borders recognized by the international community. Whether politicians want it or not, whether they will contribute to it or not. The people will not allow it.’
Ian Rons can “drone” on as much as he likes.
The US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine will mean Russia, China and the rest of the BRICS+/SCO countries will now form their own Multipolar, rules based, new world order which will hopefully end US hegemony, US exploitation and violence, the US dollar, the EU and the Euro much quicker than would have happened if the US hadn’t made the mistake of engineering violent events in Ukraine in an attempt to weaken Russia.
China will be quite happy to see the war in Ukraine drag on as long as possible. The more the West deplete their military hardware in this conflict, the easier the invasion of Tiawan becomes.
The Biden’s have business ties to China, i’m sure many US gov. officials do, so it would not surprise me if the Afghanistan military hardware giveaway and now this are being deliberately orchestrated to achieve this very aim. Boris was desperate to keep the conflict going, our Chancellor of the Exchequer is married to a journalist who works for a CCP controlled media organisation. How deep does the corruption go?
I haven’t read anywhere that DJI is altering its policy in relation to Russia or Ukraine.
Ukraine have very publicly had a ‘hissy fit’ accusing DJI of doing much more than providing off-the-shelf drones to the Russian military. Minister of Digital Transformation Federov accuses Russia of using another DJI product, called AeroScope, to identify and target Ukrainian DJI drone pilots with missiles. AeroScope is basically a box that detects, identifies, and geolocates DJI drones:
Fedorov asked for DJI to “switch on for Ukrainian users DJI AeroScope function; block all DJI products functioning in Ukraine which were purchased and not activated in Ukraine; block all DJI products which were purchased and activation in the Russian Federation, Syria, and Lebanon.”……
DJI did say it could establish a geofenced no-fly zone for its drones in Ukraine, but that it would affect every single drone, not just those operated by Russia. Of course it also has made it clear it does not want its drones to be used for any form of military use or for progressing an actual conflict…….Elon Musk has also made the same decision refusing Ukraine’s use of Starlink for drone attacks…..
As far as the Kamikaze Drone story goes..like most stories about China that come out of the US there isn’t one scrap of proof…..
The regurgitating of Western Propaganda Talking points is tiresome…..Putin has never said it would be a quick war…he has never said he would ‘take Kiev in three days’..that was something General Mark Milley said..and as far as I’m aware China have never said they condone or support Russia’s invasion into Ukraine….
Wang Yi, is China’s top diplomat, who in February did a ‘tour’ of Europe, he met most of Europes leaders….so I’ll assume all the European leaders who met him have got an ‘unequal and needy’ relationship with him?? LOL!
#keep coping…….
uninteresting piece written as a vehicle to demonstrate some wishful thinking and fantastical speculations. Especially amused by how the “unwinnable war” for Russia idea is shoe horned in… remember, the west’s objective is to destroy the recalcitrant Russia because it wouldn’t align with western ‘values’ and because apparently Russia’s security concerns nor the lives of ethnic Russians in the east of what used to be ukraine are deemed important enough for consideration. By those measures the west have already lost and Russia has already won.
Do not believe what the Chinese govt says or announces.