AFN reported in a March 2 story China and Russia used the backdrop of the Beijing Winter Olympics to announce a “new era” of partnership in finance and energy. That meant the two allied countries were committing publicly to work together to challenge the United States and its allies.
When the army tanks rolled into Ukraine a week later, China abstained when the United Nations Security Council voted on a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
China also engaged in blatant fence-sitting diplomacy by defending Russia but voicing concern for civilian casualties.
Now, four weeks into that war, President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, met with this week with a Chinese diplomat in Rome. The meeting was described as “intense” by a State Department official because Sullivan expressed concern about China’s “alignment” with Russia and promised “implications and consequences” for that action, Reuters reported.
That threat comes after the U.S. begged China for months to convince Putin to not invade Ukraine, and showed China intelligence to bolster its claims of a looming invasion, but China shared that U.S. intelligence with Russia, The New York Times reported.
The Biden administration also claims Russia is asking China for military aid in its Ukraine attack, a claim China denies. Sullivan’s threat to punish China over military aid comes at the same time the U.S. and NATO are pouring weaponry into Ukraine in a proxy war against Russia. Putin has has said the truck convoys leaving Poland are a “legitimate target.”
Over the weekend, President Biden authorized $200 million in anti-tank and air-defense weaponry for Ukraine on top of weapons and ammunition being shipped to help Ukraine fight Russia’s invasion.
Bob Maginnis, a national security analyst at the Family Research Council, says China knows it is in a position to be the world’s hegemon because of its economic influence and its military capabilities.
“And they would like to replace us and the West with their new world view,” he warns. “And that's precisely what they are about.”
An axis of enemy negotiators
A day after Sullivan’s meeting with the Chinese on Monday, The Wall Street Journal broke the news that Chinese officials are negotiating with Saudi Arabia to price its lucrative oil sales in the Yuan, which would mean dropping the U.S. dollar.
The use of the dollar is known in the international oil industry as the “Petrodollar," and the Saudis have been using the dollar -- the world's reserve currency -- since the 1970s.
China has been wooing Saudi Arabia to drop the Petrodollar for years but those talks “stepped up” this year because the Saudis are angry that the Biden administration is negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran, The Hill reported.
At the same time China and Saudi Arabia are talking, the Biden administration is attempting to restart the nuclear deal with Iran that Donald Trump famously dropped. But the irony of that negotiation is a rich one: The United States is using Russia as a go-between to help Iran and the U.S. finalize a deal.
According to The New York Post, Russia's negotiator is Mikhail Ulyanov, who praised Iran in an interview for "fighting for their national interest" in the negotiations. He also praised another country, too.
"Our Chinese friends," Ulyanov said, "were also very efficient and useful as co-negotiators."
The video of the Russian diplomat was first reported by RealClearPolitics.
