Beijing is “picking a side” and can’t claim to be neutral any more, the US ambassador to NATO tells POLITICO.
China is helping Russia meet its war goals in Ukraine by continuing to sell supplies such as drone technology and gunpowder ingredients to Moscow, the U.S. Ambassador to NATO said in an interview.
“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] cannot claim to be entirely neutral in this case, [and] they are in fact picking a side,” Julianne Smith told POLITICO on Tuesday. “I think when the PRC tries to portray itself as neutral, when it comes to this war, we don’t buy it.”
Smith said the United States was “increasingly seeing materiel support” from China to Russia, adding that this equipment — which can have both civilian and military uses — had played a critical role in helping Moscow achieve some of its aims against Ukraine.
I don’t disagree with you actually. It’s wrong for China to be helping Russia here, and it’s wrong for the US to be helping Israel. They aren’t the exact same scenarios, so there are differences, but the US and China are both doing the wrong thing in these individual scenarios. Ideally China would stop trade with Russia and the US would also stop aiding Israel. Not one or the other. It’s good for the two countries to call each other out on these.
As a side note, writing this comment did make me realize one big difference between the two situations. The US has widespread protests against the Israel aid policy, especially at universities. I haven’t heard of any similar protests in Chinese society or universities regarding Russia, but I also don’t tend to consume Chinese news. That, and the Chinese government is not as welcoming of protest like this (which says a lot, considering the US isn’t exactly either). Do you know if there’s any dissent in China?