In Beijing and Kyiv, the divide between China and Europe over the war in Ukraine was on display this week.
As a Chinese envoy crisscrossed Europe for talks on ending the war, his boss, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, trumpeted a sharp rise in China-Russia trade — which the West sees as providing an economic lifeline to Moscow that undermines the sanctions it has imposed to try to pressure Russia to withdraw from Ukraine.
“Russian natural gas has entered thousands of households in China, and Chinese cars are driving in the streets of Russia, which fully demonstrates the strong resilience and broad prospects of mutually beneficial cooperation,” Wang said at an annual news conference on Thursday.