China In Eurasia

While international audiences saw images of besieged Ukrainian cities and thousands of civilians fleeing the country through humanitarian corridors that have faced Russian bombardment, Chinese viewers were shown Russian aid convoys bringing supplies to beleaguered Ukrainians.

China's People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, posted a video on March 9 on Weibo, the popular Chinese social-media platform, showing Russia providing humanitarian aid to Ukrainians outside Kharkiv, a Ukrainian city near the Russian border that has faced artillery and rocket attacks since Moscow's February 24 invasion. The video received more than 3 million views.

In other coverage, the Moscow correspondent of China's Phoenix TV has issued reports while embedded with Russian troops outside of Mariupol, a strategic port city that is the scene of stiff fighting. In a recent clip he speaks with soldiers about their steady advance and talks to civilians allegedly welcoming the presence of Russian forces.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, China's tightly controlled media and heavily censored Internet have provided increasingly skewed coverage, omitting details on civilian casualties and the widespread international condemnation of Moscow, while quoting Russia's own state-backed networks and broadcasting the views of Russian officials -- without verification or pushback -- to its domestic audience.

While Beijing is threading the needle diplomatically and looking to put breathing room between it and its close ties with the Kremlin in the face of mounting international pressure over its invasion of Ukraine, China's state media and vocal officials are increasingly converging with Moscow's distorted narrative of the war -- even beginning to push conspiracy theories against Ukraine and the West in the process.

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"U.S. biolabs in Ukraine have indeed attracted much attention recently," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on March 8, echoing a conspiracy theory regularly pushed by Russian media and online accounts that some Western officials charge could be part of an effort by the Kremlin to justify its invasion by saying that Ukraine is working on biological or nuclear weapons.

"All dangerous pathogens in Ukraine must be stored in these labs and all research activities are led by the U.S. side," Zhao added, without providing evidence to support the claim. U.S. and Ukrainian officials say the allegation is baseless.

China, Russia, And The Ukraine War

The biolab theory has been a mainstay of Russian state media -- and even some embassy accounts on social media -- with a recent report by Foreign Policy magazine highlighting how it has taken hold among American far-right online conspiracy networks and spread to other countries as well.

It is also not the first time it has been referenced by Chinese officials, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying first raising the claim about biolabs in Ukraine during a May 2021 press conference.

Chinese diplomats have also frequently pointed to Fort Detrick -- a U.S. military facility in Maryland that the Soviet Union falsely claimed in the 1980s was the source of the virus causing AIDS and has often been a target of Russian disinformation -- to deflect questions when asked about the origins of COVID-19.

But the timing and renewed push of the theory could be part of a wider strategy, with Britain's Defense Ministry tweeting on March 8 that while the baseless claims are long-standing (Ukraine has stated that it has no such facilities), they "are currently likely being amplified as part of a retrospective justification for Russia's invasion of Ukraine."

The biolab story also fits with a growing trend of convergence between Chinese and Russian sources that has accelerated since the war in Ukraine, with false and misleading stories echoed by Chinese media and receiving hundreds of millions of views on Weibo in the process.

Throughout the war, Chinese media have helped spread dubious Russian-state narratives about Ukrainian forces using civilians as human shields while also saying the Russian military only goes after other military targets, despite the shelling of dozens of apartment blocks and other civilian structures.

WATCH: CCTV video has surfaced showing a car carrying two pensioners being blown apart by an armored column at a crossroads in Makariv in the Kyiv region on February 28.

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Chinese networks have also magnified and spread Russian disinformation, such as when Chinese state broadcaster CCTV quoted Russian officials to falsely claim that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had fled the capital, or when the state-backed Global Times, citing the Russian state network RT as its only source, said many Ukrainian soldiers had surrendered on the first day of the invasion.

Taken together, this highlights a different version of the war that viewers and online users are seeing in China compared to most of the world and how Chinese authorities have allowed the Kremlin's propaganda networks to shape its public's perception of the war with few restrictions.

For instance, the Kremlin-backed Sputnik has over 11.6 million followers on Weibo and other Russian outlets also have large and engaged followings inside China, where access to many other foreign media outlets and major information sites are blocked or restricted.

This has contributed to Russian claims about Ukrainian officials being extremists and neo-Nazis to be regularly adopted online and also picked up by Chinese-language outlets, which often reference the Azov Battalion -- a fringe unit of the Ukrainian National Guard known for having neo-Nazi sympathizers in its ranks -- and show it as representative of wider Ukrainian society.

More Than Censorship

Control of all Chinese media by the Communist Party and intensive Internet censorship make it difficult to gauge public opinion, while pervasive censorship also means the pro-Russian sentiment online in China is likely not representative of the country as a whole.

But the types of content that are allowed online or published by state-backed media show what Chinese authorities want their population of 1.4 billion people to think.

China's government has neither condemned nor condoned Russia's war in Ukraine and has even refrained from calling it an "invasion." Both expressions of sympathy for Ukraine and support for Russia appear online and in social media, but criticism of Moscow is regularly censored, according to China Digital Times, a group that tracks Chinese censorship and online discussion at the University of California, Berkeley.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have grown closer in recent years and heralded a new era in their ties during a joint meeting in Beijing on February 4.

While Russia's invasion of Ukraine has left Beijing awkwardly distancing itself diplomatically from the Kremlin, the shared messaging from both countries' state media shows that ties are still intact and they could be growing in the information space, an area where many experts say cooperation has been developing in recent years.

Xi and Putin have signed a variety of media-cooperation agreements over the years and have held a Sino-Russian media forum annually since 2015.

A December report by the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) found that both China and Russia had played a central role in spreading COVID-related disinformation and propaganda throughout the pandemic. However, the report did not find clear-cut evidence of direct cooperation between Beijing and Moscow, instead noting that they "borrowed from and amplified each other's campaigns."

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Similarly, a June report from the Carnegie Moscow Center found that while both countries' state-backed media and officials often echo similar talking points and narratives on world events, this is largely due to Beijing and Moscow having shared "strategic objectives" in global affairs.

"Chinese and Russian online behavior are largely the result of Chinese actors' careful but independent study of and creative adaptations of the Kremlin's tools, rather than an expression of active, ongoing cooperation between the two governments," the report noted.

A flurry of high-stakes diplomacy -- with growing calls by Western officials for China to use its influence to pressure Russia to end its war in Ukraine -- has shifted the focus on Beijing's role as a potential mediator in the crisis.

The conversation for China to take the diplomatic mantle accelerated following a March 5 statement by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in which he said he had received assurances that "China is interested in stopping this war."

"Chinese diplomacy has sufficient tools to make a difference and we count that it is already involved and that their efforts will be successful," he said.

The statement from Kuleba was echoed by Western officials, such as Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who called on China to join the effort to stop the conflict, and European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo that Beijing could be a mediator in helping to find a diplomatic solution.

"We [Europeans] cannot be the mediators, that is clear.... And it cannot be the [United States] either. Who else?" Borrell said during the March 5 interview. "It has to be China, I trust in that."

While Beijing's potential role in brokering peace is under the spotlight, in large part due to its close ties with the Kremlin, some experts and diplomats have questioned China's credentials, motivation, and levers for influence to mediate and push for a diplomatic solution for the war.

"China is unlikely to play any serious mediating role in Ukraine," Ryan Hass, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and former director for China on the National Security Council, told RFE/RL. "At most, it may seek to burnish its diplomatic credentials by masquerading as a reliable channel, even as it continues to lean toward Moscow."

China's Diplomatic Dance

With doubts about Beijing's willingness to lean on Moscow, the EU appears to be focusing on pressuring China to use its influence with Russia to help broker a cease-fire and bring Moscow to the negotiating table, with Borrell speaking about the issue on March 7 with Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.

"China has the potential to reach out to Moscow because of their relationship, and we’d like China to use its influence to press for a cease-fire and make Russia stop the brutal, unprecedented shelling and killing of civilians in Ukraine," a European Commission spokesman said on March 7.

Beijing has built warm ties with Russia over the years, which were reaffirmed during a February 4 meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin at which the two leaders declared a “no limits” partnership.

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China has tried to distance itself from Russia's offensive since it started on February 24 -- especially as the Kremlin shifted tactics and civilian areas were targeted -- while avoiding any criticism of Moscow.

China has refrained from calling the war an "invasion" and said it recognized the "legitimate security concerns" of Russia. During a March 7 press conference, Wang referred to China's relationship with Moscow as "rock-solid" and hailed future prospects for cooperation.

At the same time, Beijing has tried to edge slightly away from Russia in statements, speaking about its "unwavering support for Ukraine's sovereignty," while adding that China is ready to make "every effort to end the war...through diplomacy." It has also expressed "regret" about the military action and concern for civilian casualties, signaling it could play a role in trying to broker a cease-fire.

"China still wants to occupy an in-between, gray area that allows it to keep relatively good relations with all parties," Francesca Ghiretti, an analyst at the Berlin-based think tank MERICS, told RFE/RL.

"The statements from Beijing have been rather consistent throughout.... At the moment, there is little to gain for China out of the role of mediator."

Some Western officials are hoping that, by adding public pressure on Beijing and calling its global image into question, China will shift its calculus.

During a visit to Lithuania on March 7, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Beijing of hypocrisy, saying that, despite its rhetoric about "upholding the international order, stability, and respecting sovereignty," it still stood behind Moscow and that its "actions are speaking much louder than its words."

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Despite the recent push on China, little progress seems to have been made.

An EU diplomat familiar with the issue told RFE/RL that there was currently nothing concrete about formal mediation involving China, despite the outreach from Brussels.

"Everybody who reaches out to Putin is welcome to do so," the diplomat said. "So far, he has not shown nor expressed to anyone any readiness to enter into any negotiations [or] mediation."

If Not A Mediator, Then What?

China and Russia have been drawn together by a shared antagonism toward the United States and a desire to push back at what they feel is Western pressure targeted against them.

While many experts and former officials say Beijing is highly unlikely to drop Moscow as a partner, they acknowledge that Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the human and political crisis it has caused does not sit well with China and that Beijing is currently recalibrating its position.

"China may have believed that this conflict was in its interests because it had the potential to distract the United States and sow transatlantic division," the Rhodium Group's Noah Barkin told RFE/RL. "Instead, it has brought the EU and [United States] closer together and triggered a foreign policy rethink in Europe that could boomerang on Beijing."

Citing a Western intelligence report, The New York Times reported that Chinese officials told their Russian counterparts in early February not to invade Ukraine before the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, though it was not clear whether Putin told Xi directly of any specific war plans for Ukraine.

Chinese officials rejected the report as "pure fake news," but it highlights the reputational and strategic risks that Beijing faces as it looks to save face with its public tethering to Russia and trying to shield itself from blowback to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and its rising civilian death toll.

"Either Beijing misjudged Putin and the effect his attack on Ukraine would have on Western resolve, or it judged that the long-term benefits of this conflict would outweigh the short-term risks," Barkin said. "What seems clear is that China will have to start recalibrating its rhetoric soon or run the risk of losing Europe. Ukraine could well be a tipping point for EU-China relations."

This leaves Beijing with a difficult balancing act.

Chinese policymakers are wary about U.S. pressure in the Indo-Pacific region that could impede its continued global rise and they still see Russia as a needed partner in any future confrontation. But the fallout from Moscow's invasion is already proving to be a strategic headache for China.

According to Hass, who oversaw China policy on the National Security Council under U.S. President Barack Obama, "Beijing seems committed to sticking closely with Moscow" but there are still roles short of being a peace broker that China could be willing to play to help stabilize the situation in Ukraine.

"The United States and others would be best served engaging Beijing on discrete issues where China could make a constructive contribution," Hass said. "[Such as] humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, avoiding backfilling global sanctions on Russia, and not standing in the way of global efforts at the UN to ensure future accountability for [Moscow]."