Published March 1, 2023 5:28pm EST
Lawmakers call for urgent action to put checks on China's influence
Senior congressional correspondent Chad
Pergram reports on bipartisan calls to take action to put checks on China's
powers.
Russian President Vladimir
Putin’s top allies,
China and Belarus, enhanced their own diplomatic ties Wednesday after leaders
from both nations met in Beijing and agreed to deepen defensive coordination as
Europe faces its greatest security threat since World War II.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Belarusian President Alexander
Lukashenko signed a series
of bilateral agreements that would expand cooperation in areas ranging from
agriculture and trade to artificial intelligence and defense, reported the
Belarusian state news agency Belta.
Details on what an expanded
China-Belarus defense partnership would entail were slim, though according to
Belta, the agreement called for increased joint military training, cooperation
on countering terrorism and "a joint preventive fight against color
revolutions," which refers to anti-regime protests.
But one former Defense Intelligence Agency intel officer for Russian doctrine and strategy, Rebekah Koffler, told Fox News Digital that the agreement could pave "the way for China to potentially funnel weapons and ammunition through to Russia to assist in the war on Ukraine."
"This is a very strategic move by Xi Jinping," she
added, noting that the Chinese leader’s motivations for the burgeoning partnership with
Minsk go beyond his support for Putin.
"It’s a move to
peel away Belarus from Russia. Russia and China are only short-term partners of
convenience," Koffler said. "They both seek to prevent the U.S. from
intervening into their respective perceived spheres of influence on behalf of
Ukraine and Taiwan."
"China is gradually cultivating Russia’s dependence … and Russia is truly becoming China’s junior partner. China is gaining more and more leverage over Russia and now over Russia’s former Soviet subjects," she added. "China wants to outsmart Russia."
Koffler’s point was echoed in another agreement that Xi and
Lukashenko reportedly signed on to Wednesday when they agreed to deepen
"all-round cooperation" under China’s prized Belt and Road Initiative – a global infrastructure scheme Beijing
launched in 2013.
Putin’s top allies did not address recent concerns voiced by the
U.S. that China could
look to send Moscow lethal aid to help Russia turn the tide in its deadly war
in Ukraine, but instead both leaders called for a cease-fire.
Chinese President Xi Jinping
attends a meeting with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko (not pictured) in
Beijing on March 1, 2023. (Pavel Orlovsky / Belta / AFP via Getty
Images)
China last week rejected the U.S.’s suggestions, saying it has no plans to send arms and introduced a 12-step peace plan that it says could help bring an end to the war.
Western defense
officials and Kyiv scoffed at the plan, saying it lacked any real substance as
it called for the territorial integrity of all countries to be respected but
did not say what should happen to the Ukrainian regions Russia illegally
annexed last year.
Lukashenko threw his
weight behind the ambiguous plan for peace and urged both Ukraine and Russia to
agree to a cease-fire.
Caitlin McFall is a
Reporter at Fox News Digital covering Politics, U.S. and World news.
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