Top House Republicans and other foreign policy experts insist that the Biden administration must do more to confront and combat
Beijing’s support
for
Russia’s
war in Ukraine
amid the
growing “DragonBear” alliance.
Secretary of State
Antony Blinken
and others have repeatedly hinted in recent days that China is considering providing Russia with significant lethal support for the Ukraine war, but Rep.
Michael McCaul
, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), a former Army Green Beret, said the White House needs to publicly lay out the evidence it has and take significant steps to push back on the wide-ranging rhetorical, economic, and
non-lethal military support China is already providing
.
CHINA PROPPED UP RUSSIAN WAR MACHINE IN UKRAINE
“Simply condemning the CCP for their continued support of Putin’s war — and horrific war crimes — isn’t enough. They need to implement real, punitive measures on the CCP in response,” McCaul told the Washington Examiner, adding, “Chairman Xi has always had one goal — divide the West in order to make the CCP more powerful. It’s time the Biden administration accept this and act accordingly.”
Chinese leader
Xi Jinping
and Russian President
Vladimir Putin
announced a “no limits” partnership ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics in early February 2022, and Russia invaded Ukraine later that month. Since then, China has been key in providing the Kremlin with
propaganda support echoing Russia’s justifications
for invading, has been an
essential financial lifeline
for the Russian economy and has provided the Russian military with
key equipment
to assist its war machine in Ukraine.
“China has been exporting dual-use technology and raw materials to Russia that can be used for military hardware, like aluminum,” McCaul told the Washington Examiner, adding, “It is critical the Biden administration declassify any intelligence that shows the CCP is sending lethal aid to Russia the moment it has significant evidence this has happened because the American people and the world have a right to know.”
Waltz agreed that detailing China’s military support for Russia and explaining the U.S. sanctions against Beijing for its behavior is essential.
“Not only should they be explaining it and calling them out, they should be doing it in concert with all of our other European allies and making sure that our allies are on board with their own sanctions, and it should really be an international outcry so that the Chinese can’t just kind of isolate and blame the Americans,” Waltz told the Washington Examiner, adding that “the fact that they [the Biden administration] are not aggressive, I think that says a lot about the agenda here.”
The Commerce Department
announced
on Friday it was blacklisting 86 new entities “related to their activities in support of Russia’s defense-industrial sector and war effort.” Five of the newly-sanctioned entities are based in China.
China-based AOOK Technology, Beijing Ti-Tech Science and Technology Development Company, Beijing Yunze Technology Company, China HEAD Aerospace Technology, and Spacety were
sanctioned
because they “significantly contribute to Russia’s military and/or defense industrial base.”
China Electronics Technology Group Corporations 13th Research Institute was sanctioned in June 2022, along with its subordinate institution Micro Electronic Technology, because they had
“supported, and continued to support, Russia’s military.”
The Commerce Department also sanctioned five other Chinese companies at the time “for their continued support of Russia’s military efforts.”
The Treasury Department also
sanctioned
Spacety China in January 2023 because it provided satellite imagery orders in Ukraine to enable “combat operations in Ukraine” conducted by Russia’s Wagner Group.
Citing Center for Advanced Defense Studies data, the Wall Street Journal also
reported
this month that “customs records show Chinese state-owned defense companies shipping navigation equipment, jamming technology, and jet-fighter parts to sanctioned Russian government-owned defense companies.” China’s Poly Technologies appeared to be the biggest culprit. It has not been sanctioned over this.
Rebeccah Heinrichs, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute who serves as a bipartisan Strategic Posture Commission commissioner, also said, “the Biden people should be elevating this in their talks with the Europeans.”
“The China-Russia convergence has to be understood as a problem to take head-on,” Heinrichs told the Washington Examiner. “I think that the Biden administration should be talking more publicly about the things that China is already doing to speed up Europeans’ ability to weaken the ties they already have with China, and then also to begin efforts to try to prevent some of these countries from going in the direction of China.”
Heinrichs added: “I would put more of these companies on the blacklist. … I would be making the case that, born out of tragedy of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that the United States and our Western allies need to understand that we are in a Cold War and that China and Russia are in convergence.”
It was
reported
by the Wall Street Journal this week that “the Biden administration is considering releasing intelligence it believes shows that China is weighing whether to supply weapons to support Russia’s war in Ukraine.”
In response, Victoria Coates, a former Trump White House National Security Council official,
said
, “If there’s releasable intelligence on Chinese arms transfer to Russia for Ukraine, don’t send up a press trial balloon. Release it now.”
Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, said that the “opaqueness of the Biden administration is frustrating” related to China’s military support to Russia.
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“I think we need to know what it is. And what I would say is, small things can be really important,” Montgomery told the Washington Examiner. “So when you say it’s small amounts, or maybe it’s only limited flights, such as cargo flights and stuff, it could still be a difference maker. So it’s important for the administration to let the American public and our allies and partners know exactly what China is up to in a public way.”
Montgomery said the Biden administration “did a great job” in the lead-up to the war by declassifying intelligence demonstrating Russia intended to invade, but “now we’re suddenly being cautious and discreet and non-transparent about Russia.” The retired rear admiral added: “We should confront the Chinese as directly as we did the Russians in the lead-up to the war.”
