Key Points and Summary – Germany’s new government under Chancellor Friedrich Merz has taken a dramatic, hardline turn against China over its support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
-In a blistering speech in Tokyo, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul declared that “Russia’s war is made possible by crucial Chinese support.”
-He revealed that 80% of the dual-use goods Russia’s military uses come from China, which is also the largest buyer of Russian energy.
-This sharp break from the less confrontational policies of the Merkel era signals a new, more assertive German foreign policy toward Beijing’s role in fueling the conflict.
Germany Slams China: ‘Russia’s War Is Made Possible By Your Support’
WARSAW, POLAND – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Monday held a high-level meeting in the White House with U.S. President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and a cast of other European leaders.
Their goal: presenting a united front against Russia’s war in Ukraine and declaring their intention to provide security guarantees for Ukraine – guarantees that would be enforced by the U.S. and its European allies.
Hours earlier and 13 time zones away in Tokyo, Merz’s foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, hammered the People’s Republic of China for providing critical military and material support for Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“Russia’s war is made possible by crucial Chinese support,” Wadephul said in a speech at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, one of the most prestigious foreign policy think tanks in Japan.
“80 percent of the dual-use goods that Russia uses come from China,” the German diplomat stated. “And at the same time, China is the largest buyer of Russian oil and gas. And this is a development that of course not only runs massively counter to our European security interests, but also those of our partners in the Indo-Pacific.”
Trump had previously threatened secondary sanctions against countries that continued to buy Russian energy, and he had also announced a 25 percent tariff on India for buying Russian oil – this being in addition to another 25 percent tariff he attributed to trade disputes. However, Trump to date has held back from imposing these actions against China.
Wadephul continued by saying Beijing’s behavior “shows that China preaches the principles of non-interference and territorial integrity, but in reality, undermines them.”
These statements show a sharp contrast with the previous German stance toward China. The new German government is maintaining a hardline position similar to that of the preceding foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock.
While in office, she raised Beijing’s ire after she publicly labelled Chinese President Xi Jinping a dictator.
DPRK Support for Russia Would Not Be Possible Without Beijing’s Assent
Merz’s tough line on Beijing is a dramatic change from that of long-serving Chancellor and fellow CDU member Angela Merkel, who at times seemed to bend over backwards to avoid confrontation with the Chinese.
Wadephul also touched on the issue of the thousands of troops, the thousands more construction and factory workers, and the millions of artillery rounds and other munitions North Korea has been supplying to Russia. This river of ammunition flowing to Russia likely would run dry without Beijing’s approval.
“If Russia is firing North Korean artillery shells on Ukraine today, then this undermines the security order in Europe, but it also upsets the balance of power in Asia. Because it is clear Russia is showing its gratitude to North Korea for this assistance by transferring technology and expertise,” said Wadephul.
Speaking separately to reporters, Wadephul also expressed concern about continuing tensions sparked by China in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. China, he stated, “repeatedly threatens, more or less openly, to unilaterally change the status quo and shift its borders.
How The PRC Fuels Russia’s War Machine
Prior to the Ukraine war, Xi declared that the friendship between China and Russia “has no limits, [and] there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation.”
Since that “no-limits” partnership was declared, Beijing has supplied increasing quantities of materiel to Russia.
A 2023 Carnegie Endowment analysis of Chinese customs service data revealed that Beijing was already exporting more than $300 million per month of dual-use items to Moscow. These included vital shipments of defense electronics that are compensating for all the Western-produced components that have been barred from export to Russia since the war began.
In that same year, the trade between the two nations reached a record high of $240 billion. This was an increase of more than 64 percent over the pre-war 2021 trade volume between Russia and China.
In July 2023, a report from the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence assessed that Beijing is “pursuing a variety of economic support mechanisms for Russia that mitigate both the impact of Western sanctions and export controls.”
The same document concluded that Chinese defense enterprises have shipped “navigation equipment, parts for fighter jets, and other dual-use technology to Russian defense companies.” As of March 2024, China had also shipped more than $12 million in drones and drone components to Russia.
During the July 2024 NATO summit in Washington, D.C., China was denounced for its “large-scale support for Russia’s defense industrial base,” which the Transatlantic alliance calls nothing less than a critical lifeline sustaining Moscow’s war effort.
What Ukraine Thinks
“[With] the PRC buying record amounts of Russian oil and shipping even more record amounts of military-critical supplies, parts, technology – you name it – this war is never going to come to a halt,” said a Ukraine defense enterprise director who spoke to National Security Journal.
“President Trump needs to figure that out and let loose on sanctions on both Russia and China before it is too late,” he concluded.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
Military Affairs
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Swamplaw Yankee
August 24, 2025 at 11:23 am
What DNI? Didn’t Gabbard ( that is Trump) just fire the DNI staff by over 50 %? Or, what is the real story? Come on, peer readers, spill out the truth. -30-
Swamplaw Yankee
August 24, 2025 at 1:17 pm
This is op-ed being effective. Lots of data/opinion that the western MSM skirts.
Denouncing the Han PRC CCP Xi Regime is like a 2025 tourist trip to North Korea. Tourists Tightly controlled at huge cash expense.
The real story: Is this actually a nightmare horror movie script? The movie lens watches closely as a 1000 year old ancient genocide is exponentially accelerated by the 2025 progeny of ancient butchers and sex traders, arisen out of inaction to viciously re-start grand pappy’s ancient genetic need for personal “Satiation”!
I am open to Big Cash Hollywood Producers looking for the next ET wave!
The North Korean part of the “Axis of GULAG States” is blatant in its muslim intention to Genocide butcher christian Ukrainians.
The problem: The WEST’s MSM now has legalized its own internal repression squads. Full of moron youth, well paid to search/destroy anyone perceptive to the facts of history.
There was no big 1932-33 HOLODOMOR, only a tiny little bit of cannibalism and that by deviant pro-capitalist agitators. But, there was/is a huge, PR of the much lesser Holocaust in relation to the HOLODOMOR genocide of Ukrainians.
The russkie costume changes for the 1000 year old Genocide confuses some. The Putin FSB costumes, the Soviet costumes, differ from the Bolshevik costumes, differ from the Revolutionary, the White’s, the Imperial, the Czarist, the Monghol, etc.
The Muscovite genocide generations all revel in their love of Halloween costumes they use as disguises to butcher Ukrainians in their 1000 year old genocide genetic need.
Now, the old time Monghol hordes re-appear in 2024 in the re-start of their long dormant genetic need to travel to Ukraine to butcher Ukrainians.
The Yankee gestault just has no equivalent in its so very short history. The muslim sex trade raiders kidnapped Britons for centuries. The muslim sex trade raiders only kidnapped a few ship loads of Yankee women and children.
Lowered in to the muslim underground dungeons of Morocco, the Yankee Women were high prized sex items at the muslim auctions. Sorry, No Baptist allowed to bid there.
Now, if the Immans of Morocco decided to raid the various 13 colonies yearly to re-stock the underground dungeons with Yankee women, children and bacha Bazi, the colonial histories would be so, so, very different in re-interpretation in 2025.
Bu the way, women and children of colonial times “would include” any racial type of women and children. The tribes in any part of Africa were another favourite ” Harvest” spot of the muslim sex traders.
So, the Yankee DNI and all the alphabet agencies in the inner beltway are blinded legally to even dream of what the North Korean section of the “Axis of Gulag States’ is/are doing as part of the Genocide of Christians in Ukraine.
Like the DNI role in the Bin Ladin terrorist HQ blatantly operating openly in South Parkdale, Toronto Canada. The DNI Cabal knew, the DNI Cabal was ignorant, the DNI covers up now as the 100% guilty part goes either way.
-30-
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