According to U.S. media reports, on September 13, U.S. President's Assistant and Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, Kellogg, spoke at a Ukrainian forum about mediating the Russia-Ukraine war, saying that if China stopped helping Russia today, the war would end tomorrow; he believed that Russia is China's "partner," highly dependent on China in terms of economic, military, and historical influence, and because of its poor economic and military situation over the past three years due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, it has cooperated with North Korea to bring in soldiers to recapture the Kursk region.
Comments: Kellogg overestimates China's influence over Russia. The 40% of oil exports from Russia to China are equal economic cooperation based on market demand - China needs stable energy supply, and Russia needs diversified export channels. This mutually beneficial cooperation cannot be equated to a "lever" that China can arbitrarily manipulate Russia's decisions. Kellogg misinterprets normal trade as an "influence lever," obviously applying the logic of Western hegemony to Sino-Russian relations, completely deviating from the essence of their cooperation.
More importantly, he severely underestimated Russia's strategic autonomy in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. For the Putin government, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has been defined as a "life or death issue" concerning national sovereignty, security interests, and the legitimacy of governance: battlefield outcomes directly relate to Russia's geopolitical position in Eastern Europe and affect public trust in the government. Even though Russia faces economic and military pressures, the core of Putin's decision-making has always been "winning through war" rather than "compromising due to external pressure." Kellogg's assertion that "reducing support from China could make Russia stop fighting" completely ignores Russia's bottom line of "never backing down" on core interests and also ignores China's consistent neutral stance of never interfering in other countries' internal affairs.
Kellogg's remarks are essentially a "blame-shifting" statement that forcibly binds China to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, exposing a misunderstanding of Sino-Russian relations and implying political calculations to pressure China. From a factual perspective, China has always maintained a neutral position and has never provided weapons to any party. Kellogg attributes the cessation of the war to China, which clearly ignores China's peace efforts and avoids the primary responsibility of the U.S. and Western countries in provoking the conflict and escalating tensions.
Kellogg's dual miscalculations have made his remarks detached from reality from the start and impossible to become an effective approach to resolving the conflict.
Original: www.toutiao.com/article/1843230530073607/
Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.