US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Chinese counterpart at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday. They discussed many bilateral issues, but only one question mattered: Will China supply weapons to help Russia finish off Ukraine?
U.S. intelligence suggests China is considering providing arms and ammunition to Russia, an involvement in the Kremlin’s war effort that would be a ‘serious problem. … ‘It was important for me to share very clearly with Wang Yi that this would be a serious problem,’ Blinken said.
(PBS, February 20, 2023)
US should ban China if it supplies weapons to Russia
After their meeting, Blinken was conspicuously mum. So, nobody knows what the US would do if China got involved.
The US warning China seems as hollow as Russia threatening NATO. Russia keeps threatening to launch nukes if NATO supplies lethal weapons to Ukraine. But NATO has been doing so from day one.
There’s only one way China will take the US seriously: the US should lead Western countries in divesting all interests (political, financial, and cultural).
They should treat Russia and China as greater pariahs than North Korea and Iran. That means banning them from all Western-led international organizations and events.
The 2024 Paris Olympics should be foremost in this respect. But this boycott should also include banning China from the Munich Security Conference next year, just as they banned Russia this year.
Of course, China is banking on the financial greed that drives Western countries. And who can blame them? After all, the economies of most Western countries depend on access to China’s lucrative market. None of them seem prepared to lose that access to save Ukraine.
You’d never know that China needs Western countries more than they need China. China has fueled its unprecedented growth by having Western countries manufacture cheap goods there. It follows that China would not jeopardize that fuel.
Why China will supply weapons to Russia
Russia is establishing an axis of autocracies with China and Iran. It threatens to make the axis Germany established with Italy and Japan during WWII look tame. That’s why Russia thinks China will soon feel obliged to supply the weapons it needs.
Besides, China has a geostrategic interest in doing so. After all, if Russia reclaims dominion over Ukraine, that would set a precedent for China to do the same over Taiwan.
Not to mention that thin-skinned China is still smarting from that spy balloon caper. Recall that the US discovered it and sensationally shot it down. Thus, China could see supplying weapons to Russia as a perverse payback.
Democracies vs. Autocracies
In any case, the time is now to force all countries to choose sides. As the “leader of the free world,” the US should make clear that siding with Axis autocracies would mean losing all beneficial ties with Western democracies.
We’d soon see how many leaders of “non-aligned countries” in Africa, Asia, and Latin America remain so. They enjoy having bank accounts, second homes, and vacations in America and Europe. Nobody thinks they’d be just as happy having the same in Russia and China.
Meanwhile, these Axis powers have been fighting Cold War III for years. It’s high time Western democracies began fighting back. Westerners need to see that autocracies fear democracies, but all they see now are democracies kowtowing to autocracies.
A case in point is the dithering over supplying fighter jets and other weapons to Ukraine. It makes no sense. Fear of Putin’s wrath has proved irrational time and again. But this dithering is emboldening Russia and China to keep testing NATO.
If “it’s the end of the world as we know it,” so be it. Instead of feeling nervous, Western countries should be feeling strong.