China considers sending Russia artillery shells, U.S. officials say © Heidi Levine for The Washington Post
Washington Post: China considers sending Russia artillery shells, U.S. officials say
China is considering sending Russia lethal military aid in the form of artillery shells as President Vladimir Putin’s army rapidly depletes its supply of ammunition a year into his invasion of Ukraine, U.S. officials said, a prospect that has alarmed those in the Biden administration who believe Beijing has the ability to transform the war’s trajectory.
There is no evidence that any weapons transfers have occurred, these officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. government’s assessment. But if China does move ahead, it would mark the first time Beijing has provided lethal aid in the conflict despite repeated warnings by the United States not to provide such support. It would also violate the spirit of a peace plan Chinese leaders proposed Friday.
President Biden said Friday that he does not expect China to provide significant weapons assistance to Russia.
“I don’t anticipate — we haven’t seen it yet — but I don’t anticipate a major initiative on the part of China providing weaponry to Russia,” he said in an interview with ABC News. When asked if any future support would cross a red line, Biden said that the United States “would respond.”
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WNU Editor: A few days ago this blog commented on US concerns that China may send military equipment and ammunition to Russia to assist in their military operations in Ukraine, and I explained why these concerns were/are justified.
Bottom line.
The West is currently not in a position to compete with China's manufacturing capacity, and if China should decide to supply Russia with equipment and munitions, Ukraine and its allies will lose what is now a war of attrition.
And it gets worse.
Since that post a long time friend that I trust in China told me that if Beijing believes Russia will be defeated in Ukraine, they will intervene. According to him he believes the decision has been by the leadership that it is now in China's vital strategic interest that Russia does not lose in Ukraine, and it all stems from the belief that if Russia falls, China will be next.
If this is all true .... and I believe it is .... this alliance between Russia and China (and I can say that it is an alliance right now) will be a game changer. The world's resource superpower in alliance with the world's manufacturing superpower will be a bloc that cannot be contained.
A prediction.
This China - Russia alliance will be seen by future historians as President Biden's biggest foreign policy mistake if not disaster. That after almost 50 years of US efforts starting under President Nixon to make sure that such an alliance did not happen because of its geopolitical implications, within the past year the Biden administration did not only make it happen, but forced it to happen through threats and no longer respecting long established understandings on what are Russia's and China's core security "red lines".
10 comments:
The one large problem with the China/Russia alliance theory, is that the Chinese and the Russians HATE each other. They broke hard in the late 1960's.
China looks at Russians as lesser beings in control of geography and geology that they want need and desire. China has an ill-resourced population of 1.7B. The Russians - with the largest land mass and associated resources - have a population of about 143 million. It was 156 million about 15 years ago. Not a good trend.
China is happy to use Russia as a foil to inconvenience the US. Ship weapons to them to continue the attrition. Its sort of strange - weapons from China to Russia will have the same effect as arms to Ukraine from USA.
Keep the flow a Russian bodies into a meat grinder. The same goal but for very different ends.
Chinese cane out produce the Wrest and it won't matter, if ammo dumps keep getting blown up.
So it sounds like someone is trying to beat their chest like they are a silverback.
There have been criticism of Nixon's china overtures. It is said that Nixon, Kissinger and the rest were played by the Chinese. Along the same lines it is said investing in China was an even a larger mistake.
About what Russ said. I have heard people get histrionic twice. Once was a Turkish tour guide speaking of the Battle of Manzikert. The other was a Chinese talking about the hard ship of paying back the Russians with resources after Sino-Russian trade relations broken down. How does the newer Chinese generations feel about 60s? No clue. How does Xi's generation feel? I have anecdotal evidence. But if Xi feels the same way, I hope Putin likes a prone position.
I've thought for a while that concerns about not "forcing" Russia to join up with China was along the lines of Britain and France being worried about not "forcing" Fascist Italy to join up with Nazi Germany in the 1930s. On paper, good plan, but too bad Mussolini had already made the decision that the democracies were weak and degenerate and he wanted to team up with Hitler regardless of what Britain and France did. So I'm of the belief that even if the West sold out Ukraine and let Putin do whatever he wanted, Putin and Xi were always going to be buddy-buddy. The alternate scenario of Russia and China not joining forces or even being enemies was never going to happen in the short term (although it might in the mid to long term).
Chris
The one advantage Russia and China have is that unlike the West, they have not neglected their military and military manufacturing base in the past two decades. It's going to take the West time to ramp up production. But this is just a window of opportunity, and unless Russia is able to decisively turn its fortunes around that window will eventually close. But I agree that this is something the West needs to focus on now if they don't want to find their pants at their ankles in 12-24 months from now.
However, by using the terms "world's resource superpower" and "world's manufacturing superpower", WNU Editor is hiding a bunch of things. Certainly those statements alone are fine. But in comparison to the West, there's some issues. First, the United States and Canada combined have equal or greater natural resources than Russia. Then add Australia. Then add the resources of relatively friendly countries like Mexico, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia plus whatever is available on the open market. Then factor in that having those resources is not exactly the same thing as extracting them easily. A lot of Russia's resources are in places where it is difficult to access and need Western technology and engineering to do so. So in reality the claim that Russia is the world's resource superpower is much less impressive if you are using it in comparison to the West. It is certainly a strength, but not a relative strength.
And same thing with China as the world's manufacturing superpower. Except of course that the US economy is larger (depending on most, but not all, measurements), and the EU is not far behind. So the "world's manufacturing superpower" is half that of the US and EU. Then add Japan, United Kingdom, South Korea, Taiwan, Canada, and Australia.
China still cannot compete against the West technologically. It can produce a ton of lower value manufacturing and that still matters of course. But China has lost its low value manufacturing advantage for about a decade now, and many companies have moved their offshore manufacturing to other countries. That trend is going to continue for multiple reasons. And China now has declining population. That is going to start impacting its economy and government finances. Now add the fact that much of China's fake investments (building cities no one lives in, lots of financial chicanery and fraud as a result of making the statistics look good or to loot, and other mal-investments) are beginning to catch up to them. A Chinese financial crisis is now possible, though not inevitable.
China certainly has real economic assets, and I am not one of those people who think China is going into some kind of doom spiral like Peter Zeihan. (Zeihan tends to bring up good points and important trends, but then oversell them way too much - that's what you expect from someone who makes money selling geopolitical analysis to businesses because that is what all consultants do.) But the idea that China or a China-Russia alliance will have the West by the balls is ludicrous. And the more China shows itself to be an enemy, rather than a partner, to the West, the faster that economic decoupling is going to happen. China and Russia are around 18-20% of the world economy. The West and its allies (including Asian democracies) are around 55-60% of the world economy. If you absolutely had to pick a side, which one would you want to be on?
Chris
China does not want Russia to "fall". But Russia winning in Ukraine is not the key to accomplish that. I think many sober analysts do not expect Putin to fall if he loses the war although it would produce some uncertainty. But even if Putin himself is removed, what happens next is someone within his inner circle becoming a successor, not Russia radically reorienting itself to the West. And Putin is old anyway - at some point a successor must come to power even if it is just because Putin dies peacefully in his sleep.
Also while much Western aid to Ukraine is with few strings, does anyone expect Beijing to pay the bill for any help it provides Russia? Russia will be paying for everything it gets, likely at a premium. At what point do younger Russians decide a victory in Ukraine is not worth becoming a vassal to China?
Chris
Your words are far looking
Why is the cane essential?
China has no microchips and that’s why they need Taiwan… no microchips no advanced military… same with Russia they are starved of mocrochips
About Mexico, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia
I would not assume that Brazil and Saudi Arabia are friendly or in the Western camp. Saudi Arabia has its own agenda. While Saudi Arabia is not as bad as Pakistan they have some of the same desires and tendencies. Add to it that the US under Obama and Biden have rebuffed them on arms sales. So did Bush. However, Obama and Biden made it much more personal.
Brazil sat out most of Ww2. They did join in January 1943. Stalingrad was a done deal by then. Also Hitler had ordered Brazilian shipping hit in 1942. I do not expect the Russians, Chinee or Iranians to hit Brazilian shipping.
"Nevertheless, unlike in 1917, the Brazilian government sought to avoid war and instead maintain economically beneficial ties with both sides."
"In all, 21 German and two Italian submarines sunk 36 Brazilian merchant ships, resulting in the deaths of nearly 2,000 people. The wave of August attacks proved to be a breaking point, especially since the victims included army soldiers and religious pilgrims." -wiki
Regardless whether Lulu the thief is in power or not, Brazilians are intensely proud. It will take someone other than smarmy Democrat types like Biden or Sullivan to bring them aboard.
Mexico is all but ungovernable. The cartels could cause many problems. To bring the full resources of Mexico to bear, the cartels would have to be eliminated in a war and control publicly and honestly turned over to the Mexican people or you have the same problems you have with Brazil. The cartels are a serious hazard, they funnel a lot of money into border state elections. Plus they are conjoined with the Chinese and distribute drugs at will in the US. Democrats don't care.
"China still cannot compete against the West technologically. It can produce a ton of lower value manufacturing"
China produces wide bodies commercial jets domestically due to agreed upon tech transfers from Western companies. How much more high tech can you get? They also have more STEM grads. Also Chinese have consistently built and improved upon Soviet and Russian designed equipment. They are not merely copying.
A simplistic way of looking at south Korea is that North Korea and South Korea cancel each other out strategically. So Japan is still to the plus side of the column, when comparing the West to China. That may be way too simplistic, but I put it out there.
But Chris's main points still stand. It is not as rosy as WNU thinks it is.
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