China’s Ukraine Plan Is All About Challenging the US
Beijing is offering a bogus path to peace, weighing arms sales to Russia, and showing an increasing appetite for confrontation with the democratic world.
Brothers in arms?
Photographer: Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images
The war in Ukraine has already been world-changing: It has isolated Russia, unified the world’s democracies, and made the specter of great-power military conflict loom large. But if China is indeed on the verge of getting more involved — beyond the unpromising “peace plan” its government released on Friday — the strategic shocks are only beginning.
Greater Chinese support for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war could reshape not just the battlefield but the global chessboard. It might also reveal a growing Chinese appetite for confrontation with the democratic world.