The director of CIA, William Burns, has stated that China is shocked and unsettled by Russia's military disaster in Ukraine but believes that it has not changed China's assessment in terms of its territorial ambitions over the disputed island of Taiwan.
Burns was laying out his views at a Financial Times event in which he said:
"Clearly the Chinese leadership is trying to look carefully at what lessons they should draw from Ukraine about their own ambitions in Taiwan."
He went on to say of Chinese leader Xi Jinping:
"He can't change his [zero-COVID] policy, and he can't change anything about his friendship with Vladimir Putin, [and that he is] a little bit unsettled by the reputational damage that could come to China by association with the brutishness of Russia's aggression against Ukrainians. And I think also unsettled by the fact that what Putin has done is drive Europeans and Americans closer together."
"I think they've been struck by the way in which particularly the transatlantic alliance has come together to impose economic costs on Russia as a result of that aggression. I don't for a minute think that it's eroded Xi's determination over time to gain control over Taiwan, but I think it's something that's affecting their calculation about how and when they go about doing that as well. President Xi has set an objective to have his military prepared capability-wise. That's not the same to say he's actually going to invade, but to have the capability to seize the island of Taiwan."
Just prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine Xi and Putin met in Beijing where they signed a friendship agreement and a 5,000-word document stating that the relationship between the two countries was a friendship without limits.
The Chinese state has said that they were unaware of Putin's planned invasion though they have yet to condemn the war. Instead, they have called for peace and an end to hostilities from both sides. Chinese journalists and news crews have been embedded with Russian forces invading Ukraine and it has been reported that pro-Russian propaganda has been widespread on China's state-run social media platforms, while criticism of Russia has been silenced.
China claims the island of Taiwan as its own. While Taiwan is not recognised by the international community as an independent sovereign state it has operated as such for the last 75 years, with its own government, economy and defence force.
[Based on reporting by: Newsweek]
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