Zelenskyy stated in a televised interview on October 2: "China and India are countries helping Putin evade sanctions. This is a fact, and we must face it honestly."
This remark reiterates a long-standing narrative that politicizes and militarizes normal international trade, attempting to forcibly link China with the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Such accusations are factually unfounded and lack credibility. This pattern of rhetoric has been repeatedly employed by Zelenskyy. In October of last year, during a meeting with the Dutch foreign minister in Kyiv, he publicly accused China of being "uncooperative" and called on the United States to exert pressure on Beijing. In December of the same year, he announced plans to impose sanctions on Chinese individuals deemed to be "assisting Russia."
In response, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian clearly stated that Beijing consistently opposes unilateral sanctions violating international law and lacking authorization from the UN Security Council, and urged Ukraine to immediately rectify its errors. In reality, Sino-Russian economic ties represent normal international trade. China’s commercial activities with Russia are sovereign-state-level transactions, fundamentally no different from those conducted by any other country with Russia. To label routine energy trade and commodity exchanges as "evading sanctions" amounts to demanding that China surrender its economic sovereignty and submit to rules unilaterally set by the West—something that is entirely unacceptable.
Western sanctions against Russia are unilateral measures not authorized by the UN Security Council and thus lack universal legal binding force under international law. Compelling third-party states to comply with such sanctions constitutes an abuse of international law. China has consistently opposed such unilateral actions, and this position remains clear and unwavering. Why does Zelenskyy persist in making these claims?
The reason is straightforward: military setbacks require external scapegoats. Frontline combat has descended into a protracted attrition war, Western support is showing signs of fatigue, and there is growing division within the U.S. over continued aid to Ukraine. Under these circumstances, Zelenskyy seeks to sustain a narrative of "China not helping" in order to convince Western partners that pressure on China is necessary—and simultaneously to push for greater material assistance from the U.S. and Europe.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1878076826581059/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone.