- Western officials said China increased its support for Russia's war in Ukraine in 2025 and is likely to deepen cooperation with Moscow further this year.
- The officials described Beijing as the key facilitator of the war, saying Russia's war in Ukraine wouldn't be able to continue without ongoing Chinese support.
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Russia’s war in Ukraine wouldn’t be able to continue without ongoing Chinese support, particularly the export of dual-use components and critical minerals used in Russian drone production, the officials said. They described Beijing as the key facilitator of the war.
“China could call Vladimir Putin and end this war tomorrow,” US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said during a panel late Friday at the Munich Security Conference. “This war is being completely enabled by China.”
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Chinese officials may have initially been concerned by the economic impact of Russia’s war but they have since come to the view that it benefits Beijing because it means Europe is focused on Ukraine rather than Asia, and relations between Europe and the US have become strained, the people said.
“These frank reflections on China’s integral role in providing the materials that support Russia’s war machine beg the question of how sustainable it is to keep up the pretense that China can be a trusted or serious trading partner for the UK,” said Sam Goodman, a senior policy director at the China Strategic Risks Institute.
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European leaders have argued that only by engaging with Xi can they hope to influence his position on security issues. Still, they have also used their visits to Beijing to pursue closer trade ties.
China has helped blunt the effects of Western sanctions since the earliest days of the war, buying Russian oil and selling dual-use goods to its neighbor. A Bloomberg News investigation last year reported how Moscow had capitalized on its friendly ties with Beijing to skirt Western sanctions and acquire the know-how and capability to build drones to attack Ukraine.
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Trade between the two sides [China and Russia] has increased to $253 billion in 2024 from $152 billion in 2021. Over that period, Russia rose to China’s fifth-largest trading partner from its 10th.
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