Most significantly, China’s influence has recently shifted from passive supply to active manipulation of the technological balance on the battlefield—the hallmark of a state engaged in proxy warfare. In May 2025, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated bluntly, “Chinese Mavic [drones] are open for Russians but are closed for Ukrainians.”

DA WEI is Director of the Center for International Security and Strategy and a Professor in the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University.

The China-Russia alliance has grown since 2019 with joint military exercises, weapons technology sharing and coordinated strategy that could potentially create a two-front crisis risk for America.

Symbolic win for Moscow likely to leave Beijing wary of its impact on the US-China-Russia power triangle, observers say.

Russia would relinquish tiny pockets of occupied Ukraine and Kyiv would cede swathes of its eastern land which Moscow has been unable to capture, under peace proposals discussed by Russia's Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump at their Alaska summit,

From the dawn of Ukraine's first-person-view drone industry up to a year ago, producers purchased almost all of the parts they used in assembly from Chinese firms. Today, Ukrainian companies have started mass-producing the various electronics,

China has imposed sanctions on two Lithuanian banks, in retaliation for recent EU curbs on two Chinese lenders as relations sour over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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