Ian Williams Ian Williams

Is China beginning to distance itself from Russia?

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin in 2018 (photo: Getty)

The read-outs from Friday’s two-hour call between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping were so different, that you have to wonder whether the two leaders were on the same line. The White House version had Biden bluntly warning China of the consequences of providing assistance to Russia, while Beijing’s take presented Xi as a peacemaker

‘The Ukraine crisis is something we don’t want to see,’ Xi reportedly said. ‘Conflict and confrontation are not in the interests of anyone.’ The American read-out focussed narrowly on Ukraine, China’s on the broader relationship between the two countries. Global Times, the usually strident Communist party tabloid, described it as a ‘constructive interaction’.

This comes amid a subtle shift in the way Chinese state media is covering the conflict. For the first time there are reports of Russian military losses and the civilian toll of Russian strikes. The People’s Daily reported Ukrainian foreign ministry estimates that 14,000 Russian troops have been killed, while CGTN, the global arm of China’s state broadcaster, said in a tweet on Friday, ‘The dead bodies of people killed by Russian shelling lay covered across much of Ukraine.’

CGTN has shown footage of civilians sheltering from Russian missile attacks and a Russian tank firing on a civilian in Mariupol. There has been considerable coverage of Chinese humanitarian supplies, including powdered milk for children and quilts.

Beijing appears to be looking for broader concessions from Washington as a price for its cooperation

Initially, state media were relentlessly pro-Russian. Nationalist bloggers, always given more leeway on China’s tightly controlled internet, cheered on Vladimir Putin. The slogan ‘Nato still owes the Chinese people a debt of blood,’ created by the People’s Daily, was a top hashtag on Weibo, a social media platform. It refers to the 1999 accidental bombing by Nato of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in which three people died.

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