Propagandists Discover a Knife in the Back from China

In March of last year, Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited Moscow, and the Kremlin media were overflowing with enthusiasm about the prospects of an anti-American alliance. Putin and Comrade Xi referred to each other as “dear friend.” On television, the Chinese leader was respectfully called “Comrade Xi.”

Everyone spoke about a military alliance between China and Russia, claiming that Chinese comrades would help resolve issues with Ukraine and global imperialism. The most radical commentators even stated that Russia was now a vassal of China, but saw nothing wrong with it.

More than a year after Comrade Xi’s visit, it suddenly dawned on them that China couldn’t care less about Russia and is solely pursuing its own interests. China only wants Russian resources at bargain prices, and there is no talk of military assistance.

Since mid-January, some Chinese banks have stopped accepting payments from Russia in yuan, fearing secondary sanctions. This trend continues. Then, China dropped Russia from the joint long-haul aircraft project, also due to secondary sanctions.

For several days now, Kremlin propagandists have been realizing this and no longer count China as an ally. They were surprised to find out that China supplies drones and components for UAVs to Ukraine. China also supplies them to Russia, but propagandists complain that an ally should not act this way. It even went so far that war correspondent Dmitry Steshin from Komsomolskaya Pravda suggested using drones assembled from Chinese parts to strike the “Power of Siberia” gas pipeline and blame it on Ukraine. It’s curious how this idea will be received by the Chinese leadership.

In reality, it’s quite simple. China, as a pragmatic state, calculated that active support for Russia could significantly harm its economy. The markets for Chinese products in the US, Europe, and Russia are so incomparable in size and financial capacity that China cannot afford to lose even a part of these Western markets.

This can be summarized with a statement by Vladimir Solovyov, who believes that Russia has only one ally – North Korea. And with it, Russia needs to stand “shoulder to shoulder” against external enemies.