China cools links with Russia as it recognises war

China has acknowledged for the first time that a ‘war’ is taking place in Ukraine and appears to be holding back aviation supplies from Russia.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2017. Picture Kym Smith

China has acknowledged for the first time that a “war” is taking place in Ukraine and appears to be holding back aviation supplies from Russia.

In another indication that China may be seeking to put a little distance between itself and Moscow, it has been easing government exchange rate controls to allow the rouble to fall faster in value against the yuan to protect itself from the impact of economic sanctions on its neighbour.

“We hope to see fighting and the war stop as soon as possible,” Wang Yi, the foreign minister, said in a call with Jean-Yves Le Drian, his French counterpart. The remark, reported by state media, represents a shift in the party line, which had avoided the words “war” and “invasion”.

The highest-level talks between Ukraine and Russia since the invasion, hosted by Turkey, broke up yesterday without agreement on humanitarian corridors.

Residents of Irpin flee heavy fighting via a destroyed bridge as Russian forces entered the city on March 7. Picture: Getty Images

When Russia began its attack on Ukraine, Xinhua, China’s state news agency, carried an English-language report on the “special military operation”. It said: “Seeing it as ‘a matter of time’ for NATO to expand eastward, Putin took military action against Ukraine after recent negotiations with the US and NATO failed.”

About 6000 Chinese citizens have been caught up in the war. Hundreds of students were trapped in the northeastern city of Sumy as it came under heavy bombardment. Chinese state media yesterday said that the remaining 115 students had arrived in Lviv, to the west, by train and were “warmly received by the Chinese ambassador to Ukraine, drawing a perfect conclusion to one of China’s largest evacuation operations in history”.

President Xi is undertaking a balancing act between his alliance with Russia and trade with the West. China has not explicitly supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has abstained from two UN votes condemning it.

Ukrainian servicemen guard the checkpoint in the Independence Square in Kyiv. Picture: Getty Images

According to the Interfax news agency, Russia said that China had refused to supply its airlines with parts. Russian officials said they would seek to source components from other countries, including Turkey and India.

Russia’s aviation sector is being hit by sanctions and Boeing and Airbus have halted their supply of parts.

The margin by which the rouble is allowed to fluctuate against the yuan in state-controlled daily trading will be doubled to 10 per cent above or below the day’s opening price starting today, the China Foreign Exchange Trade System announced.

Holding the exchange rate steady would require China’s central bank to subsidise Russian buyers of Chinese goods by giving them more yuan for their roubles than market forces said they were worth.

At the conclusion of peace talks in the Turkish resort of Antalya, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said Russia did not plan to attack other countries and claimed “we did not attack Ukraine”.

Asked if the conflict could lead to nuclear war, he said: “I don’t want to believe, and I do not believe, that a nuclear war could start.”

A Ukrainian armoured personnel carrier flies the Ukrainian flag near Brovary. Picture: Getty Images

Lavrov added: “We see how dangerously our western colleagues, including in the European Union, are acting now, which, in violation of all their so-called principles and values, encourage the supply of deadly weapons to Ukraine. We believe these countries are creating a colossal danger for themselves.”

Portable air defence systems could be used to create “risks for civil aviation”, he added.

Dmytro Kuleba, his Ukrainian counterpart, said at his own press conference that Lavrov refused to agree to hold fire so that aid could reach civilians or the trapped could be evacuated.

In Warsaw for talks with President Duda, Kamala Harris, the US vice-president, dodged questions over the American rejection of Poland’s offer to transfer its MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine via a US military base in Germany. She added that the US was “making deliveries every day” in the form of defensive weapons such as Javelin anti-tank and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.

The Times