Russia-China friendship has some limits the U.S. can use – expert

This opinion was expressed in an interview with Ukrinform by Eric Ciaramella, an expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“China has been a huge beneficiary of the war. Because it has accelerated the dependencies of Russia on China while tying down the West and giving China important insights into effectiveness of Western weapons and things like that,” the expert said.

Ciaramella believes that China has not seen a direct interest or benefit in actively trying to end the war and exerting any significant pressure on Russia.

At the same time, China has tried to protect its own interests, such as by not openly supplying Russia with military equipment that would obviously create a sanctions risk for China.

“Of course, the Russians would love a situation where China just goes fully in on the Russian side, like North Korea has, basically, Iran has as well. But that's not been in China's interest. At the same time, they've had very little interest in kind applying real economic leverage on Russia, like stopping imports of Russian oil or stopping exports of critical technologies that are used in Russian military production,” the analyst said.

He also characterized as “very unrealistic” the idea, proposed by some representatives of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, to pursue a ceasefire and an opening to Russia as “a way to split Russia from China”.

“I would be much more focused on changing Chinese behavior to limit support for the Russian war effort and try to get them into a more constructive position rather than to try and somehow get Russia to abandon China by enticing Russia into some new deal with the United States,” said Ciaramella.

In his opinion, the Russia-China “friendship without limit” still does have some limits that the U.S. can use with a very smart policy, particularly towards China.

As reported, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian stated on May 12 that China supports all initiatives aimed at a political resolution of the “Ukrainian crisis,” including the 30-day ceasefire proposed by Ukraine, its European partners, and the United States.