Eurasia Press & News
The Mainstream Media and Alt-Media Communities have long suspected that something of the sort was going on behind the scenes, albeit each for their own ideological reasons, but the reality is altogether different than both media camps popularly present it as being.
Bloomberg cited unnamed “people familiar with the matter” to report on Saturday that “China Providing Geospatial Intelligence to Russia, US Warns”. The storyline weaved into their piece is that the People’s Republic isn’t as neutral towards the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine as its diplomats claim, thus discrediting their efforts to position their country as a mediator. Satellite imagery for military purposes, microelectronics, machine tools for tanks, optics, and missile propellants constitute the alleged aid.
The Mainstream Media (MSM) and Alt-Media Communities (AMC) have long suspected that something of the sort was going on behind the scenes, albeit each for their own ideological reasons. The first wants everyone to believe that China is dishonest and represents a threat to the West while the second wants them to think that it’s secretly Russia’s military ally and that Beijing is indirectly containing NATO. The reality is altogether different than both media camps popularly present it as being.
To begin with, the services that some Chinese companies allegedly provide to Russia in the identified spheres are carried out by companies on their own prerogative at the risk of suffering the secondary sanctions that the US threatened to impose against all those who violate its primary ones. A few entities have previously been sanctioned on this pretext, and Bloomberg also reported that Treasury Secretary Yellen warned her Chinese counterpart about this last week while in Beijing.
She threatened “significant consequences” against those companies that are found to have been materially supporting Russia in ways that could ultimately end up having military uses against Ukraine. The tiny number of companies that have thus far been sanctioned on these grounds suggests that this actually isn’t occurring anywhere near the scale that Bloomberg’s headline implied. The issue therefore isn’t systemic as part of Chinese strategy, but opportunistic as part of companies’ race for more profits.
Their article also doesn’t mention what the Insider reported in late January about how “Taiwan has become the Russian arms industry’s main source for high precision machine tools”, which the Washington Post followed up on shortly after by providing their own additional details into this subject. It’s absurd to speculate that Taiwan, whose self-proclaimed US-backed government isn’t recognized by Russia, is allegedly selling these highly important wares to Russia as part of a larger strategy.
Rather, these “politically incorrect” allegations reinforce the point that whatever trade is occurring between relevant companies across the world and Russia is part of the former’s race for more profits, not part of a strategy on behalf of the governments that they pay taxes to. Furthermore, Bloomberg also didn’t inform readers about what Reuters exclusively reported two days prior also citing unnamed “people familiar with the matter” about banking bottlenecks between Russia and China.
They’re apparently as long as half a year and are directly connected to fears of secondary sanctions being imposed on those Chinese financial institutions at the US’ prerogative if the latter decides to do so on the pretexts that it previously threatened. The same goes for what RT reported in late December citing the reputable Russian business daily Kommersant about how Chinese companies are supposedly complying with the US’ new sanctions against a Russian LNG project.
Although officially unconfirmed, there are reasons to believe that both reports do indeed have some basis in fact, which in turn adds credence to the argument that companies are operating independently of their governments. After all, China doesn’t recognize the legitimacy of American sanctions against Russia, let alone secondary ones against those who are accused of violating the primary sanctions. It’s unimaginable that the CPC would ask companies and banks to comply with its rival’s unilateral measures.
As for those that voluntarily decide to do so in defense of their economic interests in order to avoid being cut off from those lucrative American markets from which they’ve profited, the CPC simply respects their independent choice and doesn’t pressure them to reconsider. This reality contradicts the narratives pushed by the MSM and the AMC, which regularly claim that China is secretly supporting Russia’s special operation as a matter of state policy, though they differ in terms of how they judge this.
If there was any truth whatsoever to this theory, then the Insider – which was recognized by Russia as a foreign agent in July 2022 and consequently banned – would have presumably claimed in late January that China was “the Russian arms industry’s main source for high precision machine tools”, not Taiwan. That outlet has no logical reason to implicate a US-backed de facto separatist government at the center of America’s impending “Pivot (back) to Asia” for bolstering Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine.
The opposite is true: the Insider has every reason to implicate China in this alleged activity in order to further discredit its diplomats’ efforts to position their country as a mediator and serve as the pretext for imposing more sanctions against competitive Chinese companies in order to give the West’s an edge. To be clear, this rare act of arguable journalistic integrity doesn’t mean that everything else that they produced is accurate or that Russia should unban it, but simply that this particular report is likely true.
Reflecting on this insight, as well as the facts that Bloomberg only cited unnamed “people familiar with the matter” while Yellen repeated her sanctions threat without backing it up precisely because the US presumably isn’t aware of any other sanctions violators, Bloomberg’s piece is exposed as propaganda. It serves to lend false credence to the MSM and AMC’s suspicions but is discredited by the arguments and details in this analysis. Anyone who launders these claims is thus doing a disservice to Russia and China.
