China Just Condemned Putin’s Ukraine Invasion

Is this a turning point?

Putin’s war machine is on its knees. Russia has depleted its weapons, lost countless lives, and barely made any headwind in overthrowing Ukraine. Now their forces are comprised of untrained conscripts using ancient Soviet tanks, missiles, and weapons. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s forces are being supplied with lethal modern weaponry from the West, and their troops are being trained and informed by some of the globe's most effective militaries. What Russia needs to receive in order to carry through withits invasion is similar support from its close friends, like China. For months, it seemed such help was just over the horizon. But in a recent UN vote, China voted to condemn Putin’s invasion. So is Putin’s lifeline dead in the water? Or is something else afoot?

The UN recently took a vote on a resolution that calls for closer cooperation between the United Nations and the Council of Europe, which is a Strasbourg-based human rights organisation. Ultimately, this proposal was passed as it received 122 votes in favour, namely from the US, UK, Canada, most EU countries, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Brazil, China, and India. 18 countries abstained from voting, and only 5 countries, namely Russia, Belarus, Syria, Nicaragua, and North Korea (what a great crowd!), voted to oppose.

While the document itself was not about Putin's brutal invasion of Ukraine, it did cite the invasion as a main reason for trying to bring the UN and Council of Europe closer. It states: “Recognizing also that the unprecedented challenges now facing Europe following the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, and against Georgia prior to that, and the cessation of the membership of the Russian Federation in the Council of Europe, (we) call for strengthened cooperation between the United Nations and the Council of Europe.”

This means that, in effect, China, which until now has heavily avoided condemning Putin’s action in Ukraine, has denounced the Russian invasion of Ukraine as aggressive rather than retaliatory, as Putin claims it is. Bear in mind that while this is only a tiny paragraph in a gigantic document, the document does state that Putin's aggression is the main reason for trying to get the UN and Council of Europe closer. China could have opposed the document's wording or abstained from voting. But they didn’t.

So why is this such a shock?