Are we in the west, funding Russias war in the Ukraine through China?
And is the way we spend our money, counteracting the effects of sanctions against the Kremlin?
Column by: Michael Valbjorn
Background
On february 24th 2022, the russian army invaded the Ukraine from three seperate fronts. Russia and the Ukraine had already been in a continuous conflict for 8 years when this occurred, because of the Russian invasion of the Crimean peninsula in 2014. After the invasion in 2022, the Russian war machine raced for Kyiv, and actually came within city limits. before grinding to a complete stop.
For almost three years, the two nations have now battled violently along the Eastern and southern ukrainian border, and now the fighting even stretches into parts of the Kursk region of western Russia. Since the beginning of the conflict in 2022, it is estimated that roghly 11.600 civilians have lost their lives where roghly 650 of those casualties are children.
Sanctions
The Invasion in 2022 brought with it the strongest of protests from most UN security Council members and members of the NATO alliance. The U.S and EU along with other supporting nations, have imposed strict sanctions to attempt a starvation of russian ressources. The sanctions are both on imports / exports to and from Russia as well as harsh economic sanctions.
Note: These microchips are not known to be related to the conflict
So what went wrong?
But why, if western nations have imposed so many and so brutal sanctions, has it not had the wanted effect on the Russian Economy? Many experts in this regard point towards one primary economic partnership as the answer to this question, and that is Russias relationship with China.
To understand how and why the finger is pointing in this direction, we have to look no further than Chinas own customs information. Chinese customs have reported that Imports and exports with Russia have more than tripled since the Crimea conflict began in 2014. and since 2021 imports/exports have risen with a staggering 44bn$US/imports and 48bn$US/exports.
China has stated, it is not exporting ready and functioning weapons to Russia, however most of the microcomponents and other vital weapons parts components, are according to US sources mainly imported from China. 1
But not only trade with Russia, is on the Rise for China. The European Union and The United States provide China with enormous sums every single year, most of wich comes from the imports of consumer and tech products from the totalitarian states production lines. In 2023 the US reported 448bn$ worth of imports from China, where the EU reported 514bn/Euros worth of imports. 2
The question remains
So knowing all of this, the question I guess still remains, are we feeding Russias war machine, with our economic codependency with China? Are we as consumers fueling the Chinese support for Russia, every time we buy a tool or a dress on platforms such as TEMU or Alibaba? It is hard for me as an ordinary citizen too see a leadership solution to this problem, as our governments have our best interests at heart, and have no wish to put the entire economy at risk, but maybe it is time to react, and maybe we as consumers are to take steps of our own?