China - World War III
On 02 September 2024, Putin stated "The People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation are allies in every sense of the word. First of all, of course, we combine efforts in the field of economics, culture, humanitarian ties, and the language is in demand. And as it grows, and the Chinese economy is growing."
As Ukraine braced to face North Korean troops who are believed to be in the Russian border region of Kursk, analysts said China should be concerned about stronger pressure and responses from NATO, which sees Beijing as an enabler of Pyongyang and a supporter of Russia's war against Ukraine. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said 28 October 2024 North Korea's troop dispatch, in addition to shipments of ammunition and ballistic missiles, represents "a dangerous expansion of Russia's war" that threatens both Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic security. Analysts said North Korea's commitment of troops to help Russia would further strain its relations with China, which undoubtedly will dislike the development that would lead to the strengthening of NATO's ties with South Korea. "China should be concerned about NATO paying more attention to North Korea, especially since many NATO member countries see Beijing as Pyongyang's enabler," Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor of international relations at King's College London who was part of European Union delegations to previous talks with North Korea, South Korea, China and Japan, told VOA. Pardo said "China can't afford to sever ties with North Korea, due to its own security interests. So, Beijing has to endure North Korea siding with Russia and being labeled as part of an axis of authoritarian revisionist states, even if it doesn't like this label". Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, told VOA that Beijing is uneasy about Moscow's growing influence in the region through military cooperation with Pyongyang. He said China tolerated North Korea's sending munitions to Russia because it viewed that as having "a limited time frame," but after North Korea's troop deployment, Beijing is concerned about their long-term ties contributing to Moscow's growth as a dominant power in East Asia, which threatens Beijing's view of itself as playing that role. China's response to Russia's growing influence over North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong Un, likely combines "exasperation" and "panic" as Beijing appears to be losing control over its client state, according to former U.S. policy and intelligence officials. They noted that the explicit security partnership between China's two neighbors —Russia and North Korea — could undermine China's strategic position in East Asia and has long-term implications that are not beneficial for China. On 30 October 2024, Russia's Foreign Ministry announced that North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui will hold "strategic consultations" in Moscow with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, as the United States, South Korea, and NATO express alarm that Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to train in Russia.U.S. officials believe Russia intends to use North Korean soldiers in combat or to support combat operations against Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region. South Korea has condemned that as a significant security threat to the international community. In Beijing, China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, and Russian deputy foreign minister Andrei Rudenko held talks, with Wang reaffirming the strong ties between the two nations. The officials exchanged views on Ukraine but did not disclose details of their discussion. But Chinese officials have avoided direct comments on North Korea dispatching thousands of troops to Russia. "China calls for all parties to deescalate the situation and strive for the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis. This position remains unchanged," Lin Jian, a spokesperson from China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, repeated Beijing's stance during a briefing. China has a goal to squeeze everything possible out for itself. Therefore, of course, if they can make money on it, they will make money. There is a saying: Putin is the first Russian leader who lost on two fronts: in the West and in the East. He did not take Kyiv, and he lost his position of strength in relation to China. Because today China can force Russia to end the war with one decision: to stop buying and supplying at the prices at which it does. Then the war will simply end, because Russia will have no way out. The goal of making money on Russia is not strategic. China is trying to achieve two strategic goals. One, the most important one, is to increase its global influence through, among other things, participation in ending this war in some form, primarily geopolitical in relation to the United States. And the second is to increase its regional influence on Russia, to make Russia more dependent on China.
"The PRC has become a decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine through its so-called “no limits” partnership and its large-scale support for Russia’s defence industrial base. This increases the threat Russia poses to its neighbours and to Euro-Atlantic security. We call on the PRC, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council with a particular responsibility to uphold the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, to cease all material and political support to Russia’s war effort. This includes the transfer of dual-use materials, such as weapons components, equipment, and raw materials that serve as inputs for Russia’s defence sector. The PRC cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation." Washington Summit Declaration issued by the NATO Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. 10 July 2024.
Despite ever-escalating sanctions under the Biden administration on Chinese trade, Beijing has yet to fully embrace Russian President Vladimir Putin’s vision of the world order. China does support his rhetoric, particularly at summits of the BRICS states where criticism of the West and the US in particular is the standard flavour. Beijing has been reluctant to directly challenge US sanctions on Russia or push hard for a new currency bloc to challenge the dominance of the US dollar. Chinese banks, for example, have significantly cut back on offering yuan trade for Russian counterparties following increased US secondary sanctions threats. Even on crucial economic projects, such as the construction of a new major Russia-China gas pipeline dubbed Power of Siberia 2, Beijing is wary of overcommitting.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on 17 June 2024 that China was providing technology to Russia that is prolonging its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and called on Beijing to face the consequences of this support. "Beijing cannot have it both ways. At some point -- and unless China changes course -- allies need to impose a cost. There should be consequences," Stoltenberg said at the Wilson Center in Washington.
Stoltenberg said that in the past two years 90 percent of Russian microelectronics originated in China, and that China was working to improve Russian satellite capabilities. "Threats are not regional," Stoltenberg said. "China is fueling the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II, and at the same time it wants to maintain good relations with the West."
Stoltenberg said the "growing alignment between Russia and its authoritarian friends in Asia makes it even more important that we work closely with our friends in the Indo-Pacific." Non-NATO members Australia, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand would attend the July 9-11 NATO summit in Washington as observers. The secretary-general said Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine will be the "most urgent topic" for discussion at the summit, along with NATO defense spending.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby also said China was continuing to provide Russia with components for military equipment and weapon systems. Speaking at a briefing on June 17, he said microelectronics had helped "shore up...what would have been a truly crumbling Russian defense industrial base." Kirby added that the United States had raised the issue with China.
China’s official narrative about the war in Ukraine embraced three different themes over time that sent conflicting signals, according to an analysis of state media reports and official foreign ministry declarations. That reflected Beijing’s competing priorities in the conflict.
Initially, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Beijing officials sought to present China as a neutral power with no interest in getting involved. But a year later, they started to portray China as taking an active role as a peacemaker. Both of those approaches had been at odds with the state media’s coverage of the war, which had been sympathetic to Moscow. It portrayed the United States and Ukraine as aggressors and Russia as a heroic victim protecting its security.
China’s attempts to play various sides isn’t surprising. It doesn’t want the war to drag on, but it also doesn’t want to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin as it needed to keep Russia on its side against the United States and its global allies. “Beijing doesn't ultimately benefit from a prolonged war that is destabilizing the global economy and continues to present the potential risk of nuclear escalation and the spread of conflict beyond Ukraine,” said Patricia Kim, a Chinese foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “At the same time, Beijing has been reluctant to curtail its support to Moscow and to sharply push Putin to stop his war, as China is keen to keep Russia on its side as it looks toward long-term competition against the U.S. and its partners,” she said.
The Chinese government propagated narratives consistent and supportive of Russia’s justification for the war. China largely copied Russian narratives portraying itself as a victim heroically opposing the US and the West. In countries like China that lack a free press, foreign policy statements and state media coverage provide a window into government priorities.
As the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, state-run media such as Xinhua News Agency, the Global Times newspaper and CCTV are used by authorities for achieving political goals, and are aimed at specific audiences. They may target an international audience, a domestic one or specific countries.
During the first 100 days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Chinese media sought to position the country as a neutral player, shining a spotlight on Western support for Ukraine while downplaying its own ties to Moscow, said Kim. Yet state-run media coverage clearly sided with Russia. It echoed Russian narratives about three contentious topics: The theory that the United States had a bioweapon lab in Ukraine, the Russian massacre of civilians in the town of Bucha in March 2022 and the ongoing sanctions against Russia.
It also highlighted alleged divisions between Western institutions and the international community over sanctions against Russia. Such views align with those of Moscow, but they also fit with Beijing’s domestic agenda. The Chinese government sought to portray itself as a victim of Western hostility, too, alleging that the United States is seeking to contain China and its rise as a superpower—a line that Beijing has promoted among its people.
These narratives contribute to an image of President Xi Jinping as a tough statesman who is willing to stand up to the West. Chinese foreign ministry mentions of "Ukraine" and "Russia" peaked at the beginning of the war, decreased after May 2022 and increased significantly from February to April 2023. From May 2022 to February 2023, references to Ukraine or Russia by Chinese media and officials appear to have decreased. However, the number of references then jumped from February to April 2023 – with a new emphasis on China as a peacemaker working to prevent a warmongering United States from prolonging the Ukraine conflict.
The emergence of this narrative also coincided with a state visit by Xi to Russia in March 2023 — his first since the start of his third five-year term in October 2022. In many cases, this message was disseminated by Chinese foreign ministry officials, who tend to adopt a restrained tone when speaking about more nuanced geopolitical issues surrounding the war.
China also advocated a peaceful settlement to the war using other channels including several position papers. Xi himself wrote an article published in the Russian government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, in which he emphasized China’s role as a “peacemaker.” This shift in narrative was followed by a phone call between Xi and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on April 26, the first direct communication between the two leaders since the war broke out. After the call, China reiterated that its “core position is to promote peace and promote talks.”
That same day, China voted in favor of a UN General Assembly motion that acknowledged Russian aggression against Ukraine, fueling speculation that Beijing’s position toward the war had changed. Despite Beijing’s apparent shift in position, some official media reports continued to spread the narrative of the United States as aggressor, such as an article published by the Xinhua in February 2023 criticizing Washington for “still fanning the flames in Ukraine.”
Many Chinese articles reporting misleading or controversial statements by Russian officials were linked to specific incidents, such as U.S. President Biden’s surprise visit to Ukraine in February 2023. One article said that the United States had become a direct participant in the war. Another article characterized Finland's accession to NATO in April 2023 as a “deliberate violation of Russia's security.”
The visit of Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Russia caused a lot of political “noise” in the world. And then his subordinate, the Minister of Defense of the People's Republic of China, Colonel General Li Shanfu, flew to Russia. Which gave everyone a reason to talk about the supply of Chinese weapons and ammunition to the Russian Federation. The AvtoVzglyad portal reported April 24, 2023 about what weapons systems the Chinese could offer to the Russian side for use in Ukraine.
It is logical to limit the list of Chinese military equipment suitable for use by domestic specialists on the battlefield to samples that use the same ammunition as their Russian counterparts. In order not to depend on supplies from China also of shells and missiles. And so, among the armored vehicles that it makes sense to take into the Ukrainian mud, one could name the most modern Chinese tank “Type 99” (ZTZ-99) - an analogue of our T-90. Moreover, the caliber of its gun is the same as that of our tanks - 125 mm. But it’s better not to take risks: this Chinese weapon is their own design, and not a clone of some Russian model. That is, it is not a fact that the shots for it are unified with the ammunition produced in Russia. Although the Chinese military would certainly be curious to test their most advanced vehicle in real combat conditions.
The most likely candidate for deliveries to Russia is another main tank from China: Type 96/Type 96A. According to its characteristics, it can be considered an analogue of the most advanced modifications of the Russian T-72 or T-80. And its gun is a copy of our 125 mm 2A46M tank. There are about 2,500 such machines in China. Therefore, if something happens, the eastern “brothers for life” may well share hundreds of such tanks. The main thing is to Russify the menu of all their electronics and adapt the symbols at the crew’s workplaces.
The Chinese Type 04 infantry fighting vehicle will certainly look great in the ranks of the Russian army. This is a complete analogue of the Russian BMP-3. And its turret with a 100-mm cannon is generally a licensed copy of the Russian prototype. Over 2,000 of these armored vehicles were produced. Therefore, organizing the supply of a “small share” from China will not be a problem. The PRC army also has an analogue of the domestic wheeled BTR-82 - the four-axle ZBL-08/ZSL-10. The difference between them is in armament: the turret of one is equipped with a 30-mm automatic cannon (“copied” from the Russian 2A72), and the second is equipped with a 12.7-mm heavy machine gun. Unlike our vehicle, the troop compartment of the “Chinese” is located in the rear, and not in the center of the armored personnel carrier like its Russian counterpart: this arrangement is safer for landing infantry.
The Chinese can also make their PLZ-07 self-propelled howitzer available to the Russian army. It is equipped with a “Russian” 122 mm caliber cannon. The Chinese comrades also have a fair supply of these self-propelled guns - more than 1,000 in the active army alone. And how many of them are in warehouses is not known with certainty.
When talking about artillery, one cannot fail to mention multiple launch rocket launchers - both those in service with the PRC army and those produced for export. The latter includes the PR50 (“Sandstorm”) combat vehicle. It uses the same 122mm ammunition as the Russian Grad. Its six-axle chassis contains two “packages” of 20 missile guides each, 40 rounds of transportable ammunition and a reloading mechanism. Combat characteristics are comparable to the Russian 40-barreled analogue. It is also in service with the Chinese army and is a “brother” of the Russian 300-mm multiple launch rocket system “Tornado-S” - called PHL-03. Moreover, the Chinese claim that it can shoot at a range greater than that of its Russian progenitor - 160 km versus 120 km for the Tornado-S. However, no one has yet tested this statement in real combat conditions. Open data shows that the Chinese army has 175 such combat vehicles.
There is another Chinese missile system that can be useful in the air defense zone - the PHL-16 MLRS with modular combat modules. When equipped with 300 mm missiles (in packages of 5 transport and launch containers), it has almost the same combat characteristics as the already mentioned PHL-03. In addition, this combat vehicle can be equipped with packages for four 370-mm missiles with a firing range of up to 220 km. And by equipping it with a container with a 760-mm rocket, you get a real operational-tactical complex, similar to the Russian Iskander - with a firing range of up to 500 km.
Thus, the Chinese comrades can fully satisfy the needs of the Russian armed forces for a fairly serious range of combat vehicles.
Even as China continued to send mixed signals about Russia’s role in the war, pragmatism appeared to be pushing Chinese authorities to take a more active part in trying to end the conflict. Zelensky’s continued willingness to engage in talks with Xi suggests that Ukrainian leaders remain hopeful that China can play a role in negotiating a peace settlement.
While Beijing can never be an "honest broker", it still has an interest in seeing an end to the war and so it makes sense for Ukraine and other states to encourage China to use its influence constructively vis-a-vis Moscow.
Beijing had become "an even more critical economic partner" for Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine, a report by the U.S. intelligence community said, with China buying more Russian oil and gas than before and helping the country skirt U.S. sanctions. Released 27 July 2023 by the office of Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, the report says Beijing has pursued "economic support mechanisms for Russia that mitigate both the impact of Western sanctions and export controls" meant to financially strangle Moscow.
"The PRC has increased its importation of Russian energy exports, including oil and gas supplies rerouted from Europe," it says, calling China "an increasingly important buttress for Russia in its war effort" and saying it is "probably supplying Moscow with key technology." The nine-page report said "Beijing has also significantly increased the use of its currency, the yuan, and its financial infrastructure in commercial interactions with Russia, allowing Russian entities to conduct financial transactions unfettered of Western interdiction," It said that China has since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine become "Russia's most important trading partner, although as of April 2023 it had not fully replaced Western trade volumes" before the war.
Microchip exports from China to Russia, meanwhile, increased by 19 percent, the report says. But it notes that China is currently "still unable to make advanced chips that are competitive with U.S. and Western options" when it comes to military purposes, with the chips often failing. That has led Russia to look elsewhere. More than a year into the invasion, the report notes, "hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of U.S.-made or U.S.-branded semiconductors are flowing into Russia despite sanctions and export controls," even as official global exports of microchips to Russia and Belarus fell 54%.
The report did not accuse China of supplying Russia with weapons for its war effort, which U.S. officials have said would be a red line. Politico on 24 July 2023 published a story detailing apparent sales of military hardware from Chinese firms to Russia, but State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the report had not been verified and appeared to downplay sales by private companies. "We would obviously have to conduct our own assessment before making any kind of determination about whether an activity was a sanctions violation or whether we need to impose additional sanctions in response to some activity that we've seen," Miller said. The United States would "very much oppose any action on the government side - the Chinese Government transferring lethal assistance to Russia," he said, but still had "concerns" about weapons transfers "on the private sector side" from China to Russia.
The President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, drew conclusions regarding Taiwan from the mistakes of the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, during the preparation of a full-scale aggression against Ukraine. Beijing is actively studying the situation with the war launched by Russia against Ukraine, trying to get something for itself. Dmytro Efremov, an expert of the Ukrainian Association of China Studies, told about this 15 August 2023, on the air of FREEDOM TV channel.
“They are rethinking everything there, China is very interested in the experience, even the negative experience, that Russia gained during this war. Therefore, China regularly organizes a variety of military exercises with Russia in various formats and also collects information from other sources, generally forming a picture of how modern war is going, what needs to be emphasized, how to adjust its approaches, its military strategy. Yes, it’s true — China is very actively studying the situation,” he said.
Using the Russian example, China clearly formed a picture, an idea of how painful sanctions can be. “That’s why, even after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, China started revising its economic model and is trying to emphasize increasing its economic autonomy from other countries. This is called building a double-circular economy. That is, there is an inner circle, when China will provide itself with critically important goods. They will achieve complete independence from international trade and international exchanges. And the outer circle is trade with other countries, which will be aimed at earning profits and accelerating economic growth. But trade must be restructured in such a way that, in the event of a more acute confrontation with the West, it does not cause critical and irreparable damage to the Chinese economy,” Yefremov said.
Austin Ramzy and Jason Douglas reported August 22, 2023"China is playing an increasingly important role in propping up Russia’s economy and helping boost its war effort, with recent trade data showing Beijing providing a range of goods, including some with potential military applications such as microchips and trench-digging excavators.... China’s total trade with Russia in the first seven months of this year jumped 36% from the same period a year earlier, to $134 billion, putting Moscow just behind Australia and Taiwan on the list of China’s biggest trading partners... Chinese companies have supplied computer chips, jet-fighter parts and navigation and jamming technology to Russia...
"One year ago, as it became increasingly clear that President Vladimir Putin would be unable to achieve the sort of swift victory some had predicted, Russian imports of Chinese earth-moving equipment began to rise sharply. China sold Russia nearly twice as many front-end shovel loaders and more than three times as many excavators in the first seven months of 2023 as it did over the same period a year prior. The machines are generally used in construction, and the sharp increase suggests Russia put some of them to use building barriers to resist Ukrainian counterattacks, said Joseph Webster, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who has analyzed the surge in such exports. “Chinese companies have enabled the construction of Russian fortifications in Ukraine,” said Webster..."
The gap in military strength between Ukraine and Russia is too vast for Ukraine to defeat Russia on its own as long as the US or NATO is not willing to participate in the war themselves, Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, said 07 September 2023. "Although the US and NATO continue to provide assistance, it is indirect support rather than direct action. As a result, there is a limit to the increase in capacity that can be made available to the Ukrainian side," he said.
Despite receiving a large amount of weapons and equipment, it is the lack of personnel that is the most troublesome issue for Ukraine. Therefore, it is difficult for Western countries to serve their interests in the proxy war, where they provide funds and military assistance while expecting Ukraine itself to provide personnel, Chinese experts noted.
Official Beijing is aware of North Korea’s arms supplies to Russia; moreover, this happened with its permission. Thus, the head of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, is trying to increase his value at the expense of the DPRK. Ilka Kucheriva,an international security expert from the Democratic Initiatives Foundation named after Taras Zhovtenkohim spoke about this on the FREEDOM TV channel.
“We need to understand why China needs this. China, having such proxy allies, does with their hands what it cannot do itself, and at the same time continues the geopolitical game against the Western world, primarily against the United States. China’s strategy is that it is in no way pursuing a deliberate escalation of confrontation. For official Beijing at this stage (at least because strategically we also cannot exclude the option of aggravating the confrontation between, for example, Beijing and Washington), after the meeting between Xi and Biden on November 15 in San Francisco (USA) and how they constructively agreed about the distribution of roles on a global scale, you need to understand that for China to have such proxy allies, to do with their hands what the countries of the Western world do not really like, this is rather a way to increase their own value and raise the stakes in this geopolitical dialogue that Beijing is conducting with Washington,” he says.
According to the expert, these moves by China are intended to demonstrate to the Western world that there are problematic issues, situations, conflicts in the region, and Beijing has direct influence on one of the participants in these conflicts and problematic situations. Therefore, in order for these conflict and problematic situations not to go beyond certain limits, the West must understand the degree of Beijing’s influence on everything that happens, including between North Korea and the Russian Federation.
“And when negotiating with China, take into account that China has its own interests, and China, influencing these conflicting circumstances, while helping the West, must also receive something in return. That is, China, at least at this stage, those of its allies that it uses for such a geopolitical game, very clearly outlines the boundaries of this game,” says Zhovtenko.
Therefore, the expert explains, there are no very large-scale supplies to Russia from North Korea, which could do this. “We do not see the sending of other weapons, except now artillery systems and ammunition for them. Because at first they said that North Korea sent a million ammunition, then they also talked about 500 thousand additional ones. And now they are talking about several dozen ballistic systems – launchers and missiles. This is help for the needs of the Russian army, but not what the Russian leadership would count on. And China thus demonstrates that it has direct leverage over North Korea, and it will use such countries to advance its geopolitical interests,” he clarified.
How far the West will be able to influence these countries directly is a very individual story. “For example, numerous sanctions were imposed against North Korea, and this helped China, among other things, strengthen its influence on the leadership of this country. Enough sanctions have also been imposed against Iran, but the limit has not yet been exhausted; Iran has not yet been driven into a sanctions regime as harshly as they did with North Korea. That is, in this situation, it is absolutely logical for the West to influence directly these proxy countries, but at the same time take into account the influence of China on these countries and make appropriate adjustments in how they communicate not only officially (official statements in relation to the authorities of these countries), but also take into account this balance, which official Beijing thus builds for itself,” summed up Taras Zhovtenko.
Zhovtenko said that the DPRK survives in many ways thanks to assistance from the PRC. Everyone in the West understands perfectly well that Pyongyang’s actions are a continuation of China’s geostrategic game. And the fact that China cannot directly help the Russian Federation with weapons, since official Beijing positions itself as the second pole of power in the modern world and at the same time does everything to avoid being directly involved in the active war that Russia is waging against Ukraine.
By 2024 parallel imports were being made to the Russian Federation through China, as well as our own supplies of critical products, including hundreds of tons of electronics and microchips. The Arctic-2 LNG plant, already buried in the West, was revived using Chinese equipment. It is very valuable that Xi cannot be intimidated, although direct and secondary sanctions have cost Beijing tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars.
British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps announced on 22 May 2024 that there is evidence that “lethal aid is now flowing, or will flow, from China to Russia and thus towards Ukraine.” Shapps said during his speech at the London Defense Conference “Today I can reveal that we have evidence that Russia and China are cooperating on combat equipment for use in Ukraine”. He added: “This is new intelligence information that leads me to declassify this fact and reveal it today. I think it's very important."
However, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan contradicted this claim, saying 24 May 2024 that Washington did not participate in this assessment. “We haven't seen that yet,” Sullivan told reporters. “I look forward to speaking with the UK to ensure we have a common working picture.” Sullivan said the possibility of China “providing direct weapons — lethal assistance — to Russia” had been a concern earlier, but he said that had not happened. He added that what worries Washington “is what China is doing to fuel the Russian war machine, by providing inputs to the Russian defense industrial base, and not providing weapons directly.”
The United States previously accused China of helping Russia with technology and sending dual-use goods that are militarily useful, but non-lethal, especially those related to electronic equipment used in the production of Russian weapons. It helped Russian forces on the battlefield, but stopped short of saying that Beijing was supplying them with weapons on a regular basis.
Palestinian factions have signed a “national unity” agreement aimed at maintaining Palestinian control over Gaza once Israel’s war on the enclave concludes. The deal, finalised on Tuesday in China after three days of intensive talks, lays the groundwork for an “interim national reconciliation government” to rule post-war Gaza, said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The agreement was signed by long-term rivals Hamas and Fatah, as well as 12 other Palestinian groups. The factions from Palestine, including Fatah and Hamas, with key support from China, reached a declaration for nationwide reconciliation in Beijing. Experts said it will be one of key steps for the Palestinian people to achieve their goal of establishing a state and the realization of long-standing peace between Palestine and Israel. The same day, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also kicked off his visit to China. At present, the two most serious hot spot issues and conflicts in the world - the Gaza conflict and the Ukraine crisis - are continually causing bloodshed for the local people and adding concerns to achieving global peace and recovery.
The core outcome of the reconciliation dialogue among Palestinian factions held in Beijing is to specify that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is the sole legitimate representative of all the Palestinian people, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said. In the past, the reconciliation dialogue held by major regional powers in the Middle East was just between Fatah and Hamas, but this time, China gathered together representatives of 14 factions, and this means the declaration has the greatest inclusiveness and legitimacy, and is one that is acceptable to all major political factions within Palestine.
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