Ukrainians claim to have captured two Chinese volunteers. Whether or not this story is true, it is meant to prove a Chinese-Russian partnership. But is there any merit to this argument. Well, let’s see.
They would have to prove some sort of Chinese hostility toward Ukraine, or unequal favoritism toward Russia. As of right now, China is Ukraine’s largest trade partner by a huge margin. And not just in general, China is a crucial source of Ukrainian military equipment. The average Ukrainian soldier wears a Chinese helmet, Chinese sappi plates, Chinese optics, and operates Chinese FPV drones. Probably Chinese socks and underwear too.
Sinophiles like to scream that China is Russia’s greatest ally, which makes me laugh. What kind of ally openly sells weapons to your enemy? China is a Russian ally in the same sense as Turkey is a Russian ally. Not an ally at all.
Ukrainians have literally zero basis for whining about China. In fact, losing Chinese support would be the single biggest disaster for Ukraine besides losing US support. If the Chinese government got mad enough, they could simply order Chinese companies to stop selling to Ukraine, and penalize any trade partner who’s caught reselling Chinese goods to Ukraine. But Chinese don’t really seem to view the world in terms of friendships and alliances. Everyone else is just a marketplace. And someone leveling accusations against China is the equivalent of an angry customer leaving a bad review on Yelp.
As for the Ukrainian side, it is important to remember that they’re not a real country. It’s a mafia enterprise with a large marketing department. They’re desperate to latch onto whatever issue is trending in the USA. Right now Trump is in an escalating economic confrontation with China, so the ukes want to capitalize on that. Even though it makes literally zero sense to lash out at your biggest trade partner.
So why is some brief media attention in the US worth lashing out at China, Ukraine’s biggest trade partner? To paraphrase Boris Ivanov, Ukraine doesn’t want trade deals. They want stuff for free, or more precisely, they want stuff without having to work for it. So Ukrainians, despite almost every aspect of their economy and military being dependent on China, they’re not grateful for it. The Chinese should be giving them stuff for free, and the Chinese failure to give ukes stuff for free is enough to make them angry.
Pictured: some Chinese drones I saw on display in the SMO Trophies museum in Patriot Park, Moscow region. Just in case some sinophiles get mad and accuse me of slandering the Middle Kingdom with my wicked white monkey lies.
Ian Kummer
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Good article Ian.
Personally I don’t blame the Chinese for whatever, they’re working for their country and people, preserving tradition and History.
It’s our leaders that are to blame for opening our doors wide, both for goods and people, based on lying economic and social theories.
C’mon Ian, first you make sweeping generalisations about Europeans based on their shitty governments and NGOs, now you’re saying that China only cares about money? Come off it.
“But Chinese don’t really seem to view the world in terms of friendships and alliances. Everyone else is just a marketplace”
I didn’t realise Chinese sellers providing commercial goods = the Chinese government supplying the AFU.
Officially China’s position on the Ukraine war is neutrality, consistent with their non-interventionist stance. And to stop Chinese-manufactured supplies getting to Ukraine in any form would entail a near complete export ban, which is obviously unworkable – third parties can sell to Ukrainians just fine. If China only cared about $$$ they wouldn’t restrict American businesses and sail their navy around Australia to warn them to back off. Not just because of Taiwan either, there’s been decades of interference in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. In fact, China is probably the only country that successfully fought a counter-terrorism campaign with 0 deaths on the other side.
India, a country that currently receives Russian military exports, was selling shell casings to Western ammunition manufacturers and Soviet calibers like 125mm for shipment to Ukraine, why isn’t that brought up more often?
Russian telegrams whining that China doesn’t give them everything they want at cut rates is quite close to the Ukrainian complaints at times, the Russian information space is polluted with a lot of garbage quite frankly.