The head of MI6 has accused the Chinese government and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) of being “absolutely complicit” in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in a rare public address in Prague.
Sir Richard Moore, who has been chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service since 2020, also offered comment on the extraordinary mutiny last month by the mercenary Wagner group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine, Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a “no limits” partnership between their countries. After the war began, the Chinese government sought to present itself as a neutral peacemaker, and there have been signs of Xi’s dissatisfaction with events, but in practice Beijing refused to publicly censure or discourage Russia, and senior officials often expressed direct support.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“When Putin invaded Ukraine, the Chinese very clearly supported the Russians,” Moore said at the event hosted by Politico on Wednesday. “They have completely supported the Russians diplomatically, they’ve abstained in key votes at the United Nations, they’ve absolutely cynically repeated all the Russian tropes, particularly in places like Africa and Latin America — [by] blaming NATO and all of this stuff.”
Moore said MI6 now devotes more resources to China than any other mission, which “reflects China’s importance in the world, and the crucial need to understand both the intent and capability of the Chinese government.”
His comments are likely to spark an angry response from Beijing, and follow a recent speech and essay by CIA Director William Burns, who warned of Beijing’s “actions” accompanying its powerful rise.
“Russia’s aggression poses a formidable test, but China is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do so,” Burns said.
The balance of power between Russia and China had shifted in the latter’s favor, and this had hurt Putin’s prestige in Russia, Moore said.
Putin’s power had also been affected by the Wagner group revolt, he said.
“You don’t have a group of mercenaries advance up the motorway towards Moscow and get to within 125km of Moscow unless you have not quite predicted that was going to happen,” he said.
“Prigozhin was his creature, utterly created by Putin, and yet he turned on him,” he added.
Moore said Putin “didn’t fight back,” but used ally Belarus to “cut a deal” with Prigozhin.
“Prigozhin started off that day as a traitor at breakfast, he had been pardoned by supper, and then a few days later, he was invited for tea,” Moore told the Prague event.
“So, there are some things that even the chief of MI6 finds a little bit difficult to try and interpret, in terms of who’s in and who’s out,” he said.
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