Opinion | Decoding US smears over China on Ukraine
By Tom Fowdy
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has accused China of about to provide "lethal aid" to Russia in Ukraine, and threatened "serious consequences" if they do so. Predictably, Blinken didn't give any evidence of doing so, but the mainstream media depicted his comments as fact anyway. It's not the first time the US has made such accusations against China, who did so a year ago following the outbreak of the war. However, Beijing's approach to the conflict has been cautious, as opposed to jumping all in support of Russia, despite the "no limits partnership" Putin and Xi Jinping declared in January 2022.
The United States often weaponizes this kind of rhetoric in order to place public pressure on China, usually for the goal of invoking opposition to Beijing in allied countries, which has been a frequent theme of American government discourse in recent years. The US after all, created a massive drama over the so-called "spy balloon" for this purpose, and last week, news articles began appearing stating that the US is seeking for all of G7 to sanction China. It is obvious on this backdrop, that the United States may be "manufacturing consent" for new sanctions.
As the United States escalates its geopolitical confrontation against China, Washington has sought to place growing pressure on Europe to "take sides" accordingly. While this is nothing new, the year of 2022 saw US containment efforts shift from being something "economic" to outright military in nature, a shift influenced by the events of the conflict in Ukraine. As such, the US has significantly accelerated its technology sanctions against Beijing in the area they deem critical, whilst also aiming to expand its alliances and military presence around China, while engaging in destabilizing behavior over Taiwan.
What has this got to do with purported support for Russia's war in Ukraine? The answer is that the United States would like to target China's military industrial complex with further sanctions, and subsequently push European countries to agree to those sanctions, by implicating China as supporting Russia in the conflict. This is of course not based on any substantial evidence whatsoever, but the United States never deals with facts concerning how it smears enemy countries, and frequently asserts dominance over global political narratives.
This comes at a time whereby China is seeking to cling onto its relationship with European countries amidst this American pressure, especially "key" states such as France and Germany, with Wang Yi having conducted a tour of Europe and met with several high-profile figures before attending the Munich Security conference. History shows that the United States frequently weaponizes "wedge issues" in order to force given countries to make moves on certain matters which "put them in a corner", and has long used this to undermine the Chinese relationship with Europe.
Two contemporary examples include the US demand that Europe followed suit with China's human rights sanctions over Xinjiang, which blocked the comprehensive investment agreement (CAI) in 2021, whilst it also supported Lithuania in its highly provocative move to open a "Taiwan representative office" against the One China Policy later that year. The US recognizes because the European Union is a coalition of countries, with multifaceted institutions and layers of government, it is not hard to find an entry point to create "disruption" to undermine the bigger picture, whether it be the European Parliament, or small states such as Lithuania.
However, in this case, the US may be prepared to return to the issue of Russia's war in Ukraine to frame China, which is obviously the most critical security issue of the time. While of course talk of getting coordinated G7 sanctions is quite a challenge diplomatically, the US may also use the threat of such to push China into denouncing the war or distancing itself more from Moscow. It will certainly seek to make the price of any Chinese-Russian alignment high, and has not been afraid to sanction other countries being willing to offer military support to Ukraine, such as Iran.
In conclusion, however, it is quite obvious that China will not be in the business of providing direct military aid to Ukraine, and there is no cost-benefit advantage in doing so. The United States has long weaponized misleading rhetoric in the bid to smear China on whatever objective it seeks to fulfill, and the western mainstream media as always, uncritically parrot at fact. It's another game the US is playing, either to impose sanctions on China, or to back into a corner. It remains to be seen what the outcome will be.
The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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