Russia is said to have asked China for military equipment

Vladimir Putin with Xi Jinping

The Russian President and the President of China maintain a good relationship.

(Photo: AP)

Beijing/Washington Shortly before a meeting between US national security adviser Jake Sullivan and China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi in Rome on Monday, the Chinese foreign ministry accused the US of spreading false information. “Recently, the US has been constantly spreading disinformation against China. It’s malicious,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Beijing.

Earlier, several US media outlets, citing US officials, reported that Russia had asked China for military equipment to support its invasion of Ukraine. In addition, Moscow has requested economic aid to limit the effects of the sanctions, it said. The reports came right before Sullivan and Yang met. As reported by the Italian news agency Ansa, talks have now begun in Rome on Monday morning. One of the topics is said to be the Ukraine crisis.

Sullivan told CNN on Sunday that the government is “closely monitoring” the extent to which China is providing “material or economic support” to Russia. “That’s one of our concerns,” he said. However, the US government made it clear to Beijing that the US would not stand idly by if a country were to compensate Russia for the economic damage caused by the sanctions.

Rhetorically, Beijing is trying to maintain an apparently neutral position in the conflict and is calling on both sides to exercise moderation. However, it is becoming clear again and again that China is on Moscow’s side in the war. The United States had repeatedly warned the Chinese government not to thwart sanctions against Russia. The question of the extent to which China was aware of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plan before he invaded Ukraine has come up again and again in recent days.

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>> Read here: “China and Russia will advance their partnership”: Beijing continues to cover Moscow – for now

Just last week, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi underscored Beijing’s commitment to the Kremlin. The “common commitment to everlasting friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation” is extremely relevant and important, he stressed at a press conference on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress. Since the start of the Ukraine war, China has avoided calling Russia’s attack as such and thereby identifying Moscow as the aggressor. Instead, it has consistently shown sympathy for Russia’s alleged security concerns in the region. At the same time, the State Department claims that NATO and the US escalated the conflict. For a few days, Beijing has even been spreading the theory, spread by Moscow, that Washington operated virus laboratories in Ukraine.

In recent weeks, Brussels and European officials have tried to persuade Beijing to intervene with Russia to end the war. China’s leader Xi Jinping and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin refer to each other as “friends”. But even a conversation between Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), French President Emmanuel Macron and Xi Jinping last week did not appear to bring about a corresponding change in China’s position in the conflict.

Xi only emphasized that “we must jointly support the Russia-Ukraine peace talks and encourage both sides to maintain the momentum of the negotiations, overcome difficulties, continue the talks and achieve peaceful results,” the meeting summed up from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Chinese government had made similar statements a few days earlier. According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Yang Jiechi was also present at the three-way talks.

Russia is running out of foreign exchange

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov had previously said that Moscow could no longer access foreign exchange reserves worth around 300 billion US dollars because of the sanctions. “That’s about half of the reserves we had,” he told Russian TV channel Rossiya-1.

He pointed out that part of the gold and foreign exchange reserves are held in Chinese yuan and that the West is pressuring Beijing to restrict trade with Moscow. However, the minister was confident that relations with China would continue to improve.

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