China’s state-run Global Times on Monday mocked the visit to Ukraine by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, needling the Biden administration for staging political theatrics while offering “nothing significant to completely change the situation.”
Blinken and Austin made a secretive visit to Kyiv with a small delegation on Sunday, as revealed while they were in flight by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. After meeting with Zelensky for about three hours, the American officials pledged millions of dollars in enhanced security assistance, more training for Ukrainian troops, and the return of U.S. diplomats to Ukraine.
The White House did not officially confirm the trip had been made until Blinken and Austin were en route back to the United States.
The Global Times rounded up some Chinese analysts who insisted Ukraine is slowly losing its battle against Russia, nothing the Biden administration promised will make a difference, and the U.S. is just cynically using the Ukrainians to weaken its adversary in Moscow as much as possible:
Cui Heng, an expert from the Center for Russian Studies of the East China Normal University, told the Global Times on Monday that “the only winner of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is the US. Blinken considers Ukraine a proxy of the US, so he believes the US’ victory is Ukraine’s victory.”
Increasing military financing and the sale of ammunition by the US to Ukraine is to extend the conflict, not to overturn the situation or end the conflict as soon as possible, and has no constructive effect on the current situation, Cui noted.
Another “military expert,” Song Zhongping, said, “No one can just use money to buy a modernized army. Russia has noticed that the US will only provide weapons or train military personnel outside Ukraine, but won’t intervene in the situation directly.”
The Global Times predicted, “Russia cannot lose,” but advised Moscow to avoid setting any arbitrary timetables for wrapping up major battles or declaring complete victory. The Chinese paper told Russia to proceed with confidence now that Washington has proven itself unserious about changing the ultimate outcome.
Contrary to this boasting from Chinese Communist media, some financial analysts believe China is the third party most severely damaged by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as Beijing’s tacit support for the brutal operation prompted the largest capital flight on record over the past two months.
A major factor in this capital exodus is fear among foreign investors that international sanctions could target China for helping Russia or could trigger an even greater global crisis by invading Taiwan. Beijing’s mania for incredibly destructive “zero-Covid” policies is also spooking investors.
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