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Ukrainecast

Is China helping Russia fight Ukraine?

Ukrainecast

BBC

News Commentary, News

4.71K Ratings

🗓️ 16 July 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Last week at the Nato summit, leaders called China a ‘decisive enabler’ of the war in Ukraine - a statement that Beijing denies.

So what is China’s role in this conflict?

We’re joined by historian Rana Mitter and Spectator journalist Cindy Yu to try and make sense of it all.

Today’s episode is presented by James Coomarasamy and Vitaly Shevchenko. The producers were Arsenii Sokolov and Cordelia Hemming. The technical producer was Jack Graysmark. The series producer is Tim Walklate. The senior news editor is Richard Fenton-Smith. Email Ukrainecast@bbc.co.uk with your questions and comments. You can also send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram to +44 330 1239480

You can join the Ukrainecast discussion on Newscast’s Discord server here: tinyurl.com/ukrainecastdiscord

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

0:04.7

It is 874 days since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

0:10.0

And today we're talking about China, its relationship with Russia, and to what extent it has a role in this conflict.

0:16.5

NATO accused Beijing of being a decisive enabler of Russia in a statement issued after its summit last week. In fact there was so

0:26.2

much about China as much as about Russia. NATO also accused China of posing a systemic challenge to Euro-Atlantic

0:36.2

security. This is what Joe Biden said about China at his press conference

0:41.2

following the NATO summit last week.

0:43.4

You have to make clear China has to understand that if they are supplying Russia with information

0:50.4

and capacity along with working with North Korea and others

0:56.6

to help Russia and armament,

0:59.1

that they're not going to benefit economically as a consequence of that by getting the kind of

1:05.2

investment they're looking for.

1:07.2

Well China as you might expect fiercely rejected the criticism from NATO.

1:11.7

They're Washington from NATO. Linjan from the Chinese foreign ministry said the NATO statement was full of cold war mentality and belligerent rhetoric full of bias, smears and provocations.

1:27.0

And on Sunday China and Russia's naval forces began a joint exercise at a military port in southern China.

1:36.8

It's expected to last a few weeks.

1:42.0

As far as we know, China is not supplying weaponry to Russia. However, trade between the two countries is skyrocketing. Russia is getting a lot of money from China by selling oil to it and also technology and various kinds of equipment such as diggers and engines for drones and missiles, that's according to

2:07.1

yes officials and that is causing a lot of concern in the West and in Ukraine.

2:12.4

But is it a in Ukraine.

2:13.0

But is it a relationship of equals?

2:16.0

Is Russia getting as much out of it as China?

2:19.0

That's just one of the things we'll be discussing in this edition of the podcast.

...

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