China wants Vladimir Putin not lose war in Ukraine. Nevertheless, Beijing is one of the greatest winners of the current crisis and the weakness of Russia.
In the past few months it has become even quieter about China and his attempts to mediate in the Ukraine War. Not much is left of the Chinese peace plans from 2023 and 2024. Nothing indicates other Chinese initiatives to influence the Russian President Vladimir Putin. On the contrary: Chinese President Xi Jinping stands on the political side line, he waits, is neutral in the conflict. And he leaves US President Donald Trump the big diplomatic stage.
Only the information that has been spread in Chinese social networks such as Haokan and approved by the Chinese authorities are a finger of which on which page XI is on. After the most recently sent Russia to Poland, Chinese online channels and some media spoke of the fact that Poland would be the first NATO country to send soldiers to Ukraine.
As proof of this, they stated that Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Selenskyj Poland had assured his support in drone defense and that the Polish army sent soldiers to the border with Belarus. In fact, it was a safety precaution with a view to the maneuver “Sapad 2025”.
The Chinese disinformation strategy appears clear. “The general goal is to create information chaos so that it will be difficult to distinguish what is true and what is not,” said Marcin Przychodniak, China Analyst at the Polish Institute for International Affairs (Pism), the German wave. According to Przychodniak, Russia and China “share some narratives and sometimes refer to thinks about NATO and the European Union.”
The Chinese leadership would like to continue to nourish their enemy images in the fight for a geopolitical leadership role among their own population – that of the West, NATO and the USA. At the same time, XI is also about taking responsibility and spreading Putin’s perspective on the war, which above all sees NATO’s expansion as the reason for the conflict. Russia is the aggressor and Putin continues to reject negotiations, but with this information strategy, XI was able to use this information strategy to commit interior and foreign policy pressure more in this conflict.
Because for China, the war could not go long enough as long as Putin does not threaten to lose. XI has long since become the main professional of this war in Europe. However, the People’s Republic not only benefits geopolitically, but also economically, which once again illustrate the current Ukrainian attacks on the oil industry in Russia. XI also remains Putin’s lifeline for emergencies.
