Alarmed by inaction over Russian aggression, Europe rethinks ties with China Chinese leader Xi Jinping meets then-Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in 2018. | POOL / VIA REUTERS BYALAN CRAWFORD,COLUM MURPHYANDALBERTO NARDELLI BLOOMBERG Apr 29, 2022 https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/04/29/world/europe-rethinking-china-ties/ Russia’s war on Ukraine has triggered a profound reassessment in European capitals of their individual and collective relations with China. Confronted by the need to rapidly unwind a dependence on Russian energy built up over decades, government officials from Rome to Prague are now reevaluating the extent of their economic and political ties to China. Senior lawmakers in Berlin, who now concede that such closeness to Russia was a historic liability, are starting to see the danger of repeating the mistake with another authoritarian regime, and are raising alarm bells over Germany’s status as Beijing’s largest European trading partner. Nations in central and eastern Europe are casting fresh doubt on the wisdom of the so called 16+1 forum with China. And Italy has just strengthened its veto power against foreign takeovers, a measure directed at China. At the European Union level, attitudes have soured over Beijing’s refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion and its attempts to undermine the transatlantic unity fostered by the war. A virtual EU-China summit on April 1 took place in the context of what a person familiar with the discussions described as an increasingly challenging relationship. Against the backdrop of war in Europe, the EU went into the talks with the key priority of calling on China to use its influence with Russia to stop the bloodshed, the person said, adding that there was a serious concern continued inaction by China would have a lasting negative impact on EU relations. After the summit, a readout from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing said that President Xi Jinping called on Europe to have an “autonomous” view of China, and that the solution to the conflict was to accommodate the “reasonable security concerns of all parties concerned.” The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, described the exchange with China as “a dialogue of the deaf.” After Xi met with Vladimir Putin in early February and declared a “limitless partnership,” Beijing has attempted to stay neutral in the conflict, expressing understanding for the Russian president’s stance even while defending Ukraine’s sovereignty. Systemic rivalry Beijing is unlikely to welcome the instability and economic turmoil Putin’s war has brought. Yet even if its ability to influence him is limited, the EU argues China has unique channels it could use to try. The view from a European diplomat in Beijing is that the war is pushing China and Europe further apart, strengthening their systemic rivalry. The pandemic and Europe’s realization that it relied on China for basic medical supplies was the wake-up call; Russia’s war on Ukraine bolsters the argument that Europe must reduce its dependence on Beijing, the diplomat added. “This is really the awakening of the West,” said Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, whose Baltic nation suffered a collapse in exports to China after it tussled with Beijing over Taiwan, the island democracy China regards as its territory. The EU lodged a complaint with the World Trade Organization in March over China’s treatment of Lithuania. “The main lesson that we should learn from Russia’s war in Ukraine is that trade alone doesn’t change how authoritarian countries act,” Landsbergis said in an interview in Vilnius. “When we’re talking about China, we are clearly seeing that new dependencies are being developed.” China overtook the U.S. as the EU’s largest trading partner in 2020, with total trade worth some $868 billion last year. The war in Ukraine has snarled up already fragile supply chains on trade routes between the two, while adding to soaring costs for energy and raw materials. But geopolitical considerations are also influencing firms operating in China. A majority of German companies there said in late March — prior to the “COVID zero” lockdowns in Shanghai and elsewhere — that the crisis caused by the war in Europe was impacting their China strategy, according to a survey of 391 members of the trade chambers. A third of respondents said they expected to put planned business or investments on hold, while 46% saw a decrease in the attractiveness of the Chinese market. Some 10% said existing business might be moved out of China, and 27% said they expected diversification to accelerate in Asia. Jens Hildebrandt, executive director of the German Chamber of Commerce in North China, says the trend is away from globalization and toward more of what he calls “localization,” where companies build localized supply chains to serve specific markets. The U.S.-China trade conflict spurred that development, “and the Ukraine war gives another push to that,” he said by phone. For Joerg Wuttke, who heads the EU Chamber of Commerce in China, “the kind of public image of China when it comes to Ukraine is really making a difference.” Taken along with its COVID zero policy and the associated disruptions to business, “what really matters now is the perception of China becoming unreliable,” he said, calling it a “new dimension.” EU-China relations have deteriorated sharply in the past year, marked by the imposition of reciprocal sanctions over the human rights situation in Xinjiang. China took aim at members of the European Parliament, putting passage of an ambitious EU-China investment deal on ice. Its treatment of Lithuania added to tensions. In March, two weeks after Russia’s invasion, China warned the U.S. against trying to emulate NATO in the Pacific and dismissed comparisons between the security disputes over Ukraine and Taiwan. “China-EU ties are already facing growing difficulties on various issues, and bringing more points of friction based on nothing is not in the interest of either side,” the Chinese Communist Party’s Global Times newspaper said in an op-ed this week calling on the EU not to “fall into Lithuania’s trap.” ‘Downward spiral’ Going into the April summit, Brussels and member states had hoped Beijing would halt the “downward spiral” in EU-China ties by using its leverage on Russia to help end the war, said Janka Oertel, director of the Asia program at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “That hope has been shattered,” she said in an online commentary. The sense of dismay at China is arguably most acute among countries in central and eastern Europe that have the most hawkish views on Russia. Paradoxically, they are also among the EU nations with which China had the best relations, via its 16+1 forum that allowed smaller states an audience with Beijing’s leadership. Disaffection with the forum has long been evident, and Lithuania quit last year. A Chinese diplomat was dispatched to the region last week, fanning speculation that others may now be considering a way out. She was met by a warning from the Czech government that China’s endorsement of Russia would hurt its relations with the whole EU. Business boost Still, few advocate decoupling. The Dutch have woken up to the China threat in recent years, yet that doesn’t mean they are going to stop trading with or talking to Beijing, people familiar with the government’s thinking said. Some European companies are increasing their focus on China. One of Volkswagen AG’s priorities for 2022 is to “boost our #China business,” Chief Executive Officer Herbert Diess wrote in a post on Linkedin. Europe needs China to stabilize the economy as it suffers spillover from the war, according to Henry Wang Huiyao, founder of the Center for China & Globalization, a policy research group in Beijing set up as a bridge explaining China’s position to the world. “The message is that if the EU militarily is more bonded to NATO now, economically they will have to be more bonded to China as time goes on,” he said. But the political mood in Europe’s biggest economy appears to be shifting in the opposite direction. Speaking at the Ludwig Erhard Summit last week, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said Berlin needed a whole new business model to reduce its economic reliance on China. End of era Lars Klingbeil, who co-leads Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party, told the same conference of the need to learn the lessons of Germany’s Russian policy and “end the dependence on China.” In Italy, Prime Minister Mario Draghi has hardened his stance on China after Russia’s invasion. Italy strengthened its veto powers against foreign takeovers this month by setting up a special division to oversee any potential merger, enabling it to block a deal if it involves a strategic sector. “The war has already triggered intense debates on critical infrastructure and resilience in Europe,” Agatha Kratz, an associate director of the Rhodium Group, and Max Zenglein, chief economist at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, said in a joint report this week. The era of “massive Chinese investment” in Europe may be over, they said.
Jonathan Holslag is a professsor in international politics and specialist in Chinese politics and relations. He predicted already more than a decade ago for the danger of "Made in China" cheaper production. This article is a must read to understand the position of China in the Russian-Ukrainian war. And gives also an idea what the future risk will be. "China does not benefit from active role in Ukraine war" ©REUTERS With Russian troops struggling at the front, Putin enlisted the help of 'borderless friend' China. Is the pressure on the Chinese to take sides? 'China will do what it always does,' says professor of international politics Jonathan Holslag. 'Buy time and postpone choices.' Russia has asked China for military aid in the conflict in Ukraine. This is reported by American media based on American government sources. It is not clear exactly what help Moscow is hoping for. It is also not known whether China has responded to the request. Beijing dismissed the question as 'fake news' on Monday. Russia also allegedly requested economic assistance to mitigate the impact of the sanctions, it said. The communist regime in Beijing has so far tried to adopt a rather neutral stance in the conflict over Ukraine. Direct support to ally Russia might bring China into conflict with, among others, the Western world, which nevertheless accounts for a large part of the global economy. The United States has warned China and Chinese companies several times not to help Russia evade sanctions. If they do, "the Chinese companies themselves risk becoming the target of US sanctions. Buy time After two weeks of relative 'neutrality', and above all cautious aloofness, the pressure on China is increasing to choose sides. Nevertheless, according to China expert Jonathan Holslag, the superpower will do what it always does: buy time and postpone choices. 'China is between hammer and anvil,' says the professor of international politics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). 'On the one hand there is Russia, the historically 'inviolable strategic partner', on the other there is the threat of Western sanctions.' Although the initially unconditional support for the Russian regime has already weakened, the most important thing for China remains to maintain its freedom of action, says Holslag. Therefore, Xi Jinping will not cause a breakthrough. 'China does not benefit from an active role. At the moment that is too risky, because the military outcome is still too difficult to estimate. If Russia wins and Putin stays in power, it is important for China to maintain good relations. But if Ukraine turns out to be stronger, and the climate in Russia becomes unstable, China will feel that too. world peace Moreover, China does not feel the need to act as leader or keeper of world peace, according to Holslag. Last week, Josep Borrell, the European Union's foreign policy chief, said China was the only country in the world that could mediate in the crisis. 'There is no alternative. We Europeans cannot be mediators. And neither can the United States. Who else? It must be China," Borrell said. Holslag nuances that. “China is incapable of changing Putin's mind. He no longer fights purely for military victory. His future is at stake. Putin has cornered himself in such a way that an outsider has little influence. China is particularly concerned about the long-term geopolitical ramifications. 'The division between East and West has long been a fact. We have to be sober about that. The conflict in Ukraine, however dramatic, will have little impact on that. For China, it is a fringe in the broader power shift it envisions. That is why this will not change much in the relationship between China and the Americans. China will never explicitly take sides with the US, that's what the whole policy revolves around.' The war in Ukraine will only have one big winner and according to international politics professor Jonathan Holslag that will not be Russia or Ukraine, but China. “This is just the appetizer.”
Deaths of foreign fighters draw renewed Deaths of foreign fighters draw renewed attention to the military volunteers in Ukraine. May 1, 2022 4 hours ago Jane Arraf Reporting from Lviv, Ukraine https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/01/world/europe/foreign-legion-volunteers.html Malcolm Nance, a U.S. Navy veteran serving in Ukraine’s International Legion, contrasted the war in Ukraine with the American invasion of Iraq. “You’re the hunted now,” he said.Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times The deaths of three foreigners killed this week while fighting with Ukrainian forces has drawn renewed attention to thousands of largely unregulated volunteers who have gone to fight Russia’s invasion, some of them accepted into an international legion. Among the dead was Willy Joseph Cancel Jr., 22, a correctional officer and a Marine Corps veteran who left Kentucky to fight with the Ukrainian army, his uncle said. Mr. Cancel’s father was told that the former Marine had been killed when his Ukrainian unit was overrun by Russian troops this week, the uncle, Christopher Cancel, said. His body had not yet been recovered. A Ukrainian Defense Ministry official confirmed on Friday that an American, a Briton and a Dane had been killed fighting with the Ukrainian Army’s International Legion. The official asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the deaths. “The armed forces pay tribute to the sacrifice of the foreign heroes who have come to protect the Ukrainian people from this barbarous invasion but also to defend freedom and democracy everywhere,” the legion said in a statement. Malcolm Nance, a Navy intelligence veteran and former TV commentator who is now the public face of the legion, called the volunteers who died “protecting angels, along with all those people who lost their lives in this senseless Russian invasion.” In an interview before the foreign fighters were killed, Mr. Nance said many would-be volunteers arriving in the country underestimated the danger from Russian forces. He said the war was unlike what American veterans may have experienced in the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. “You’re the hunted now,” he said. “And it is a full combined arms army with an enormous artillery machine that is there to chew you up.” Ukraine and Russia have each had steep military losses, though their governments have not given specific figures. In mid-April, U.S. intelligence agencies estimated that 5,500 to 11,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed, and more than 18,000 wounded. Western intelligence agencies estimate that Russian military losses range from 7,000 to 10,000 killed and 20,000 to 30,000 wounded. The United Nations says at least 2,300 civilians have also been killed, acknowledging the actual number is likely much higher. After signing up a rush of volunteers at the start of the war, the International Legion recently has become much more selective in recruiting members, taking only those with combat experience who pass rigorous vetting, according to the legion’s spokesman, Damien Magrou, a Norwegian lawyer. Mr. Magrou said the legion rejects a majority of applicants, but some of those who are turned down make their way to the front lines anyway, hoping to find another group to fight with. “We tell them there is a shuttle bus back to Poland, the best thing you can do is get a seat on it,” he said. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine announced the formation of the legion on Feb. 27, three days after the invasion began, and invited foreign volunteers to come and fight. Ten days later the Ukrainian government said it had received 20,000 applications. The government has declined to say how many foreign volunteers there are in the country, but there are believed to be several thousand, most of them fighting with groups other than the International Legion. It was not clear when Mr. Cancel joined the legion. According to the Marine Corps, he left the U.S. military last November after receiving a bad conduct discharge and serving time in a military jail for an undisclosed criminal offense. Fighters accepted by the International League sign a contract to fight with the Ukrainian army and are paid the same rate as Ukrainian soldiers. In Lviv, in western Ukraine, train and bus stations have become hubs not only for Ukrainians, but also for Americans and other foreigners arriving to join the fight or help with aid efforts. Dominick Henry, a businessman from New York City who was recently in Ukraine helping with logistics for volunteers, said he tried to channel most of the new arrivals into humanitarian operations. “Usually when Americans go fight they’ve got air support, they’ve got everything,” he said. “This time it’s the opposite.” He said many of those who came to Ukraine to fight the Russians were disappointed when they were rejected by combat forces. “They come for glory and honor,” said Mr. Henry. “They think it will give them a leg up in life. It’s a heavy price to pay.”
Hacking Russia was off-limits. The Ukraine war made it a free-for-all. Experts anticipated a Moscow-led cyber-assault; instead, unprecedented attacks by hacktivists and criminals have wreaked havoc in Russia By Joseph Menn Today https://www.washingtonpost.com/tech...cyber-attacks-hacking/?itid=hp-top-table-main For more than a decade, U.S. cybersecurity experts have warned about Russian hacking that increasingly uses the labor power of financially motivated criminal gangs to achieve political goals, such as strategically leaking campaign emails. Prolific ransomware groups in the last year and a half have shut down pandemic-battered hospitals, the key fuel conduit Colonial Pipeline and schools; published sensitive documents from corporate victims; and, in one case, pledged to step up attacks on American infrastructure if Russian technology were hobbled in retribution for the invasion of Ukraine. Yet the third month of war finds Russia, not the United States, struggling under an unprecedented hacking wave that entwines government activity, political voluntarism and criminal action. Digital assailants have plundered the country’s personal financial data, defaced websites and handed decades of government emails to anti-secrecy activists abroad. One recent survey showed more passwords and other sensitive data from Russia were dumped onto the open Web in March than information from any other country. The published documents include a cache from a regional office of media regulator Roskomnadzor that revealed the topics its analysts were most concerned about on social media — including antimilitarism and drug legalization — and that it was filing reports to the FSB federal intelligence service, which has been arresting some who complain about government policies. A separate hoard from VGTRK, or All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Co., exposed 20 years of emails from the state-owned media chain and is “a big one” in expected impact, said a researcher at cybersecurity firm Recorded Future who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss his work on dangerous hacking circles. The broadcasting cache and some of the other notable spoils were obtained by a small hacktivist group formed as the war began looking inevitable, called Network Battalion 65. “Federation government: your lack of honor and blatant war crimes have earned you a special prize,” read one note left on a victim’s network. “This bank is hacked, ransomed and soon to have sensitive data dumped on the Internet.” In its first in-depth interview, the group told The Washington Post via encrypted chat that it gets no direction or assistance from government officials in Ukraine or elsewhere. “We pay for our own infrastructure and dedicate our time outside of jobs and familial obligations to this,” an unnamed spokesperson said in English. “We ask nothing in return. It’s just the right thing to do.” Christopher Painter, formerly the top U.S. diplomat on cyber issues, said the surge in such activity risked escalation and interference with covert government operations. But so far, it appears to be helping U.S. goals in Russia. “Are the targets worthy? Yes,” Painter said. “It’s an interesting trend that they are now being the target of all this.” Painter warned that Russia still has offensive capabilities, and U.S. officials have urged organizations to prepare for an expected Russian cyber-assault, perhaps held to be deployed in a moment of maximum leverage. But perhaps the most important victim of the wave of attacks has been the myth of Russian cyber-superiority, which for decades helped scare hackers in other countries — as well as criminals within its borders — away from targeting a nation with such a formidable operation. “The sense that Russia is off-limits has somewhat expired, and hacktivism is one of the most accessible forms of striking at an unjust regime or its supporting infrastructure,” said Emma Best, co-founder of Distributed Denial of Secrets, which validated and published the regulator and broadcast troves among others. While many of the hackers want to inform the public about Russia’s role in areas including propaganda and energy production, Best said a secondary motivation post-invasion is “the symbolic ‘pantsing’” of Putin and some of the oligarchs. “He’s cultivated a strongman image for decades, yet not only is he unable to stop the cyberattacks and leaks hitting his government and key industries, he’s the one causing it to happen.” The volunteer hackers have gotten a first-of-its-kind boost from the government of Ukraine, which endorsed the efforts and has suggested targetsthrough its IT Army channel on Telegram. Ukraine government hackers are assumed to be acting directly against other Russian targets, and officials have distributed hacked data including the names of troops and hundreds of FSB agents. “There are state institutions in Ukraine interested in some of the data and actively helping some of these operations,” said an analyst at security company Flashpoint who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his work. Ordinary criminals with no ideological stake in the conflict have also gotten in on the act, taking advantage of preoccupied security teams to grab money as the aura of invincibility falls, researchers said. Last month, a quarterly survey of email addresses, passwords and other sensitive data released on the open Web identified more victim accounts likely to be Russian than those from any other country. Russia topped the survey for the first time, according to Lithuanian virtual private network and security firm SurfShark, which uses the underlying information to warn affected customers. The number of presumed Russian credentials, such as those for email addresses ending in .ru, in March jumped to encompass 50 percent of the global total, double the previous month and more than five times as many published as were in January. “The U.S. is first most of the time. Sometimes it’s India,” said SurfShark data researcher Agneska Sablovskaja “It was really surprising for us.” The crime business can also turn political, and it definitely has with the war in Ukraine. Soon after the invasion, one of the most ferocious ransomware gangs, Conti, declared that it would rally to protect Russian interests in cyberspace. The pledgebackfired in a spectacular fashion, since like many Russian-speaking crime groups it had affiliates in Ukraine. One of them then posted more than 100,000 internal gang chats, and later the source code for its core program, making it easier for security software to detect and block attacks. Network Battalion 65 went further. It modified the leaked version of the Conti code to evade the new detections, improved the encryption and then used it to lock up files inside government-connected Russian companies. “We decided it would be best to give Russia a taste of its own medicine. Conti caused (and still causes) a lot of heartache and pain for companies all around the world,” the group said. “As soon as Russia ends this stupidity in Ukraine, we will stop our attacks completely.” In the meantime, Network Battalion 65 has asked for ransomware payments even as it has shamed victims on Twitter for having poor security. The group said it hasn’t gotten any money yet but would donate anything it collects to Ukraine. Network Battalion obtained the state broadcast emails and other hoards and gave them to DDoSecrets, making it one of the most important of several hacktivist suppliers to that site, alongside a pro-Western group named AgainstTheWest and some who have adopted the branding of Anonymous, a larger, looser and recently resurgent collective that welcomes anyone. In an April 3 interview with a researcher known as Dissent Doe who runs the website DataBreaches.net, AgainstTheWest’s leader said the group formed in October and was composed of six English-speaking hackers, all privately employed but with intelligence backgrounds. The initial objective “was to steal state-secrets, government software (in the form of source codes), private documents and such. However, we also had the idea that we should act on China for attacking the west in cyberespionage campaigns over the years,” the hacker said. After hitting targets in China, AgainstTheWest moved on to those in North Korea, Iran and Russia. The leader said the group was not acting directly for any intelligence agency but declined to say whether it was being helped by any of them. “We’re doing our job in the hopes that it benefits western intelligence. We share all private documents with anyone from the government in the U.S./EU.” The group has made other documents public through DDoSecrets. Best received one request from a U.S. military account for access beyond what she published but turned it down. Painter, the former State Department and Justice Department expert, said he was concerned that some volunteer hackers might take a step too far and harm civilian infrastructure or trigger a major reaction, and he cautioned that others might be hiding additional motives. “In the normal course of events, you don’t want to encourage vigilante hackers,” Painter said. But he then agreed, “We’re not in a normal course of events.”
The premise that Ukraine needs to be “de-nazified” is complete nonsense. When Russia wants serious peace talks then they can stop their fabricated political talking points about denazification. We all know that Russia has a much larger neo-Nazi problem than the Ukraine - Russia can start with denazifying themselves. The new geo-political reality is that Russia needs to leave all of Ukraine including Crimea. That is the only acceptable reality if Russia wants peace and a reduction of sanctions. Furthermore Russia does not have sanctions against Ukraine. Looting and stealing everything like the Russians are doing is not a form of sanctions, it is a war crime.