We had to wait until the end of the evening on Sunday June 26 to find out Beijing’s reaction to what the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs finally describes as“Wagner Group Incident”. What has just happened in Russia is a “domestic affair” First of all. Then, “As a friendly neighbor and a strategic partner, China supports Russia in its efforts to protect the country’s stability, develop and achieve prosperity”, was content to declare the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a terse press release. Earlier, on Sunday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Roudenko was received in Beijing by Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang. It is unclear whether this visit was planned or not. As the United States does on its side with its allies, China had perhaps planned to inform Russia of the result of the recent visit of the American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to Beijing.
Unlike Turkey, China did not publicly support Vladimir Putin before the agreement reached between the Kremlin and Yevgueni Prigojine, the boss of Wagner, under the aegis of the Belarusian president. On Monday, an editorial from China Daily explain that “The incident should serve to accelerate efforts to ensure a political settlement of the Ukrainian crisis which is a cause that contributed to the dramatic event”.
Peking’s malaise seems palpable. Monday, THE People’s Daily only reproduces the short press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and The Army Daily makes no reference to the “Wagner Group Incident”. After believing that “the Ukrainian crisis” would be settled in a few weeks, then bet on a weakening of the West, China must face a scenario that it had not foreseen: the destabilization of Russia by a part of the nationalists and a weakening of Vladimir Putin.
In the absence of official reactions on Saturday, some Chinese commentators were initially unkind to the Russian president. In a video posted on Weibo, the Chinese Twitter, Jin Canrong, an expert in international relations at Renmin University, followed by more than 2.5 million people, judged on Sunday that the Wagner rebellion is “bad for the front line with Ukraine, bad for Russia’s stability and bad for Putin’s authority”.
The flip-flops of propaganda
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