China is providing crucial support for Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and could end the war with a phone call, US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said.
“China could call [Russian President] Vladimir Putin and end this war tomorrow and cut off his dual-purpose technologies that they’re selling,” Whitaker said during a Friday panel at the Munich Security Conference. “China could stop buying Russian oil and gas.”
“You know, this war is being completely enabled by China,” the US envoy added.
Photo: Bloomberg
Beijing and Moscow have forged an even tighter partnership since the start of the war, and Russia relies on China for critical parts and components for drones and other war material.
China is also the biggest buyer of Russia’s crude oil shipments even as international pressure intensifies on Moscow’s critical oil trade.
Tracking data showed that 1.65 million barrels of crude were offloaded at Chinese ports per day last month, which is the most since March 2024 and the second-highest monthly total since Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Still, Beijing has repeatedly said it wants to have a “constructive” role in ending the crisis.
Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) met with Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha in Munich this week and offered humanitarian aid to the country as it deals with Russian attacks against its energy system, according to readouts from Sybiha and Beijing.
The Munich conference, which ends today, attracts global policy leaders to discuss foreign relations and international security.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron are among the dignitaries assembled.
Whitaker was joined on the Munich Security Conference panel by two potential 2028 Democratic presidential contenders, US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
Other prominent Democratic political figures including California Governor Gavin Newsom traveled to the conference, seeking to reassure European allies of US commitment to the transatlantic alliance as US President Donald Trump threatens to uproot relationships across the globe.
“The Democratic Party is here for our allies,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “The vast majority of the American people do not want to see these relationships frayed, and they are committed to our allies.”
Whitmer said strains between the US and European allies, including trade tensions and Trump’s pressure campaign to obtain Greenland from Denmark, have ruptured allies’ trust in the US.
However, that damage is not “a permanent, irredeemable change,” she said.
“It will take time to rebuild but I’m confident that we’ll do that,” she added.
The alliance is “stronger than ever” because of Trump’s pressure on allies to ramp up military spending, said Whitaker, who Trump appointed as his envoy to NATO.
“The United States of America keeps showing up, and we will keep showing up. We just expect our allies to be equally as strong,” she said.
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
A Hong Kong astronaut is to join a Chinese space mission for the first time as part of a three-person crew launching today, as Beijing edges closer to its goal of landing people on the moon. The Tiangong space station — crewed by teams of three astronauts that are typically rotated every six months — is the crown jewel of China’s space program, boosted by billions in state investment in a bid to catch up with the US and Russia. The Shenzhou-23 mission is to blast off at 11:08pm from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, carrying three astronauts to
UPGRADED ALERT: The risk inside DR Congo is now considered ‘very high,’ while neighboring countries face a ‘high’ threat as the outbreak continues, the WHO said Ebola is spreading faster than responders can track it in eastern Congo, where health workers managed to follow up with barely one in five identified contacts in a single day. Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) reported 83 confirmed infections, 746 suspected cases and 1,603 identified contacts as of Thursday, but health workers were able to follow up on only 342 contacts that day — about 21 percent of the total under monitoring — data released by the DR Congo Ministry of Public Health on Friday showed. The figures suggest the response is falling behind the outbreak itself,
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
RSS