China is not our friend. Why Beijing does not want Ukraine to win the war with Russia

It is becoming increasingly difficult for China to disguise itself as a neutral country. All at once, the Western publication WSJ and Japanese intelligence released detailed information on how Xi Jinping's government is supplying computer chips, infrared cameras, and radar equipment to the Russian defense industry in violation of sanctions. It is also uninterruptedly supplying drones and other types of modern technology that the Russian army did not have before. And they were seen in large numbers a couple of months ago near Bakhmut.

Second, on February 4, the US defence forces shot down a Chinese balloon over the Atlantic Sea. At night, the State Department officially released the first report on the contents of the balloon, which included equipment for reconnaissance and data collection. High-altitude Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft observed the balloon and found that it could conduct electronic reconnaissance and that it had a radar, probably capable of collecting and transmitting information about the location of any objects. The balloon also had solar panels capable of powering this equipment. Thus, the Chinese Foreign Ministry's excuse that the balloon was purely scientific, simply collecting meteorological data and was off course is officially a lie.

The Chinese bold act disrupted the planned visit of Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing. After all, China sent a clear signal: we are ready for a global confrontation with the United States and we can't give a damn about the Monroe Doctrine.

It has also made it clear to 40 other countries over which China periodically launches such balloons that all this should not be tolerated. It is necessary to shoot them down beautifully and reliably with an accurate missile.

Many people were expecting US President Joseph Biden's annual speech to Congress. Unfortunately, this speech was lost amid the news of the Russian offensive, fried marines near Vuhledar, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy's audience with King Charles III. And it might have seemed that the 2024 election campaign had officially started in the United States. But it was there that it was announced how China would be punished for its aggression, lies, and assistance to Russia in the war against Ukraine.

In two months, Joseph Biden has publicly stated several times that the Chinese economy is not doing so well. And that for the first time since 1976, the growth rate of the American economy has been ahead of China.

Independent experts have even projected that the U.S. economy could grow faster than China’s economy this year.

That hasn’t happened since 1976.

— President Biden (@POTUS) December 11, 2022

The head of the White House also emphasized that last summer, during a conversation with Xi Jinping, he warned him that if Beijing supported Russia in the Ukrainian crisis, China would lose Western investment. But China deliberately ignored the warning and violated U.S. sovereignty, which means that Washington has announced a plan for how China will lose money.

"If China’s threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did. And let’s be clear: winning the competition with China should unite all of us," Biden told Congress. He added that the most important thing for China to claim hegemonic status is Western technology. Biden has made the rebuilding and modernization of American industry the cornerstone of his annual address. What is most important now is the creation of facilities within the United States for the manufacture of chips and other important electronic equipment. And the first harvest is already there. The Intel giant is building factories in Ohio and Arizona, facilities in Israel, and another chip plant in Germany. This is done with the intention of increasing China's technological lag. And if China does decide to take over Taiwan, it will no longer have the center of the latest technology and chips under its control.

Biden went on to emphasize the modernization of American infrastructure. This means building 20,000 new facilities, primarily airports and bridges. But there is one caveat: the share of Chinese products in construction will be targeted to be reduced. Only American products will be used. This is a bet that China will lose its status as the "only workshop in the world." And to be concerned about the hundreds of millions of unemployed inside its country, rather than to try to redefine the world's borders.

You may ask what Ukraine has to do with it, since very little was said about us in this speech. It's simple: China is the main destabilizer in the world. Without China's full support, Russia would be afraid to enter such a war, clearly realizing that it would lose its image, money, and influence. Without China's support, Moscow would be forced to retreat into a den. But it so happened that China decided to challenge the United States and grab a big piece of the world pie. Russia, on the other hand, decided to enter the game first and traditionally tear Ukraine apart as a state that had managed to get on the democratic track with a Western vector from a socialist country.

Beijing believed that against the backdrop of the three-day Russian "blitzkrieg" in Ukraine, it would quickly resolve the issue of Taiwan's seizure, zero out the US position in Asia, its economy, and force Europe to turn toward the Chinese capital.

But no. Therefore, China decided to slightly adjust the original plan. And it will do everything to make Russia's loss not obvious. So that it cannot be said with certainty that democracy in Ukraine has defeated authoritarianism on the battlefield.

It is noteworthy that, in parallel with Biden, Chinese Ambassador Fu Cong to the European Union called on Western countries to abandon the idea of a "complete victory" for Ukraine. "We are quite concerned about the possible escalation of this conflict. And we don't believe that only supplying weapons will actually solve the problem," the Chinese ambassador said during an event at the European Policy Center in Brussels. "We are concerned that people talk about winning a complete victory on the battlefield. We think it would be right to take a seat at the negotiating table," Fu Cong added.

That is, China would be very happy with the option of breaking us and turning us into a grey buffer zone where Western investment, the EU and NATO will never come. And there would be no obvious success story of democracy. When Ukraine will not be held up as an example, as a country that has won its place among the first with sweat and blood.

So we need to understand once and for all that China is not our friend. China is the inspiration and ally of our enemy, Russia. Beijing sees us as a training ground for its own wars of aggression. And although high Ukrainian offices periodically make statements about how Xi Jinping can pacify Putin or how we should take China as a guarantor of our security, these are all illusions. For China, we are food. But if we have already fallen into such a millstone of history, let us become a bone in the throat of authoritarian regimes. So that Bucha, Izyum, Bakhmut, and Mariupol were not in vain. And a hard lesson that imperfect democracy is better than a bowl of rice in a red concentration camp.