US Secretary of State Antony Blinken attended the Munich Security Conference. His Chinese counterpart did too. So they held a side meeting on Saturday.
They had many bilateral issues to discuss. 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)
Will China supply weapons to help Russia?
But after their meeting, Blinken was conspicuously mum. So nobody knows what the US would do if China got involved.
In fact, the US warning China seems every bit 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. Western countries must begin divesting all interests (i.e., political, financial, and cultural).
They should treat Russia and China like even greater pariahs than North Korea and Iran. That means banning them from all Western-led international organizations and events. And the 2024 Paris Olympics should be foremost in this respect.
But this should include banning China from this Munich Security Conference next year. That is, just as they banned Russia this year.
Of course, China is banking on the financial greed that drives Western countries. And who can blame it? After all, Western countries depend on access to China’s lucrative market. And they have betrayed their own interests to maintain that access. That’s why China does not think they would jeopardize that access to save Ukraine.
Except this overlooks that China needs Western countries more than they need China. China has fueled its unprecedented growth on Western countries manufacturing cheap stuff there. It follows that China would not jeopardize that fuel.
In other words, China needs access to them more than they need access to China.
China and Russia are the new Axis powers
Russia is establishing an axis with China and Iran. And it threatens to make the one 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 also has a geostrategic interest in doing so. After all, if Russia reclaims dominion over Ukraine, that would set a precedent for China to do so over Taiwan.
Not to mention that thin-skinned China is still smarting. That is, from the humiliation of having the US discover and shoot down its spy balloon. So it could see supplying weapons to Ukraine as a perverse form of payback.
In any case, the time is now to force all countries to choose sides. And siding with Axis autocracies should mean losing all access to Western democracies.
Let’s 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 those in Russia and China…
Meanwhile, these axis powers have been fighting (Cold) War III for years. It’s high time the Western alliance begins fighting back. People in democracies need to see that autocracies fear democracies. 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. That 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. Because instead of feeling nervous, Western countries should be feeling strong.