China Learns New Lessons From Russia-Ukraine War: Report
China is taking advantage of the Russia-Ukraine war to prepare for a potential future conflict by drawing lessons from the ongoing three-year-long conflict, according to a United States think tank.
Newsweek has contacted the Chinese and Russian foreign ministries by email for comment.
While China has claimed neutrality in Moscow's war with Kyiv, the East Asian power is providing diplomatic support to its quasi-ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin. Beijing has also presented a 12-point plan and proposed four principles to achieve peace.
Ukraine and its Western allies have long accused China of aiding Russia during the war, including by exporting dual-use technology. Beijing this week denied Ukrainian claims that it is supplying Russia with "lethal weapons," asserting that it strictly controls dual-use items.
In a RAND report titled "China's Lessons from the Russia-Ukraine War," political scientist Howard Wang and research assistant Brett Zakheim wrote that both the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) have made "significant efforts" to study the conflict and draw lessons for Chinese policy.
The research report-published on May 22-noted that CCP analysts believe Washington "manufactures crises to justify alliances, not because their allies share interests or values."
"Accordingly, CCP analysts see these alliances as vulnerable and assess that China has opportunities to use disinformation to weaken U.S. alliances," the authors said. The U.S. government has previously accused China of conducting a disinformation campaign related to the war.
For the Chinese military, which is being modernized to become a "world-class" force, PLA researchers assessed that America's defense industrial base cannot sustain a protracted war and that the margin of U.S. technological superiority will diminish as a conflict drags on.
China believes that its defense mobilization system would offer advantages in an extended conflict, the report said. China, which has the world's largest navy by hull count, operates 35 shipyards linked to the PLA, compared with just four public shipyards for the U.S. Navy.
The report also claimed that China is redefining hybrid warfare-the combination of military and nonmilitary actions-after observing how Russia overestimated its ability to deter military escalation through nonmilitary tools, which led to "disastrous battlefield outcomes."
Given Russia's failure, the report concluded, the PLA may be growing doubtful that it can prevent U.S.-China competition from erupting into conflict. It added that the PLA is shifting to a "new vision of warfare"-one resigned to fighting a costly, protracted conflict, rather than relying primarily on compelling enemies to surrender with minimal use of force.
The RAND's report said: "[T]he lessons that CCP and PLA leaders learn from the Russia-Ukraine war support the CCP's development of strategies and policies for strategic competition with the United States, including how to prosecute a potential future conflict such as a war over Taiwan."
Mao Ning, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said at a press conference on May 27: "China's position on the Ukraine issue is consistent and clear. We've been committed to bringing about a ceasefire and promoting talks for peace. China has never provided lethal weapons to any party to the conflict, and strictly controls dual-use items."
It remains to be seen how the Chinese ruling party and military will apply the lessons learned from the Russia-Ukraine war to Taiwan, a self-ruled island claimed by Communist China, which has repeatedly threatened the use of force against the U.S. security partner.
Related Articles
China Responds to Latest Trump Visa Move: 'US Lie'Satellite Imagery Captures Chinese Aircraft Carrier in Contested WatersMarco Rubio Announces New Plan to Revoke Chinese Student VisasChina's Military Presence Grows on Doorstep of New U.S. Partner
2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
29 minutes ago
As the UN turns 80, its crucial humanitarian aid work faces a clouded future
KAKUMA, Kenya -- At a refugee camp in northern Kenya, Aujene Cimanimpaye waits as a hot lunch of lentils and sorghum is ladled out for her and her nine children — all born while she has received United Nations assistance since fleeing her violence-wracked home in Congo in 2007. 'We cannot go back home because people are still being killed,' the 41-year-old said at the Kakuma camp, where the U.N. World Food Program and U.N. refugee agency help support more than 300,000 refugees. Her family moved from Nakivale Refugee Settlement in neighboring Uganda three years ago to Kenya, now home to more than a million refugees from dozens of conflict-hit east African countries. A few kilometers (miles) away at the Kalobeyei Refugee Settlement, fellow Congolese refugee Bahati Musaba, a mother of five, said that since 2016, 'U.N. agencies have supported my children's education — we get food and water and even medicine,' as well as cash support from WFP to buy food and other basics. This year, those cash transfers — and many other U.N. aid activities — have stopped, threatening to upend or jeopardize millions of lives. As the U.N. marks its 80th anniversary this month, its humanitarian agencies are facing one of the greatest crises in their history: The biggest funder — the United States — under the Trump administration and other Western donors have slashed international aid spending. Some want to use the money to build up national defense. Some U.N. agencies are increasingly pointing fingers at one another as they battle over a shrinking pool of funding, said a diplomat from a top donor country who spoke on condition of anonymity to comment freely about the funding crisis faced by some U.N. agencies. Such pressures, humanitarian groups say, diminish the pivotal role of the U.N. and its partners in efforts to save millions of lives — by providing tents, food and water to people fleeing unrest in places like Myanmar, Sudan, Syria and Venezuela, or helping stamp out smallpox decades ago. 'It's the most abrupt upheaval of humanitarian work in the U.N. in my 40 years as a humanitarian worker, by far,' said Jan Egeland, a former U.N. humanitarian aid chief who now heads the Norwegian Refugee Council. 'And it will make the gap between exploding needs and contributions to aid work even bigger.' U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has asked the heads of U.N. agencies to find ways to cut 20% of their staffs, and his office in New York has floated sweeping ideas about reform that could vastly reshape the way the United Nations doles out aid. Humanitarian workers often face dangers and go where many others don't — to slums to collect data on emerging viruses or drought-stricken areas to deliver water. The U.N. says 2024 was the deadliest year for humanitarian personnel on record, mainly due to the war in Gaza. In February, it suspended aid operations in the stronghold of Yemen's Houthi rebels, who have detained dozens of U.N. and other aid workers. Proponents say U.N. aid operations have helped millions around the world affected by poverty, illness, conflict, hunger and other troubles. Critics insist many operations have become bloated, replete with bureaucratic perks and a lack of accountability, and are too distant from in-the-field needs. They say postcolonial Western donations have fostered dependency and corruption, which stifles the ability of countries to develop on their own, while often U.N.-backed aid programs that should be time-specific instead linger for many years with no end in sight. In the case of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning WFP and the U.N.'s refugee and migration agencies, the U.S. has represented at least 40% of their total budgets, and Trump administration cuts to roughly $60 billion in U.S. foreign assistance have hit hard. Each U.N. agency has been cutting thousands of jobs and revising aid spending. 'It's too brutal what has happened,' said Egeland, alluding to cuts that have jolted the global aid community. 'However, it has forced us to make priorities ... what I hope is that we will be able to shift more of our resources to the front lines of humanity and have less people sitting in offices talking about the problem.' With the U.N. Security Council's divisions over wars in Ukraine and the Middle East hindering its ability to prevent or end conflict in recent years, humanitarian efforts to vaccinate children against polio or shelter and feed refugees have been a bright spot of U.N. activity. That's dimming now. Aside from the cuts and dangers faced by humanitarian workers, political conflict has at times overshadowed or impeded their work. UNRWA, the aid agency for Palestinian refugees, has delivered an array of services to millions — food, education, jobs and much more — in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan as well as in the West Bank and Gaza since its founding in 1948. Israel claims the agency's schools fan antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiment, which the agency denies. Israel says Hamas siphons off U.N. aid in Gaza to profit from it, while U.N. officials insist most aid gets delivered directly to the needy. 'UNRWA is like one of the foundations of your home. If you remove it, everything falls apart,' said Issa Haj Hassan, 38, after a checkup at a small clinic at the Mar Elias Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut. UNRWA covers his diabetes and blood pressure medication, as well as his wife's heart medicine. The United States, Israel's top ally, has stopped contributing to UNRWA; it once provided a third of its funding. Earlier this year, Israel banned the aid group, which has strived to continue its work nonetheless. Ibtisam Salem, a single mother of five in her 50s who shares a small one-room apartment in Beirut with relatives who sleep on the floor, said: 'If it wasn't for UNRWA we would die of starvation. ... They helped build my home, and they give me health care. My children went to their schools.' Especially when it comes to food and hunger, needs worldwide are growing even as funding to address them shrinks. 'This year, we have estimated around 343 million acutely food insecure people,' said Carl Skau, WFP deputy executive director. 'It's a threefold increase if we compare four years ago. And this year, our funding is dropping 40%. So obviously that's an equation that doesn't come together easily.' Billing itself as the world's largest humanitarian organization, WFP has announced plans to cut about a quarter of its 22,000 staff. One question is how the United Nations remains relevant as an aid provider when global cooperation is on the outs, and national self-interest and self-defense are on the upswing. The United Nations is not alone: Many of its aid partners are feeling the pinch. Groups like GAVI, which tries to ensure fair distribution of vaccines around the world, and the Global Fund, which spends billions each year to help battle HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, have been hit by Trump administration cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development. Some private-sector, government-backed groups also are cropping up, including the divisive Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been providing some food to Palestinians. But violence has erupted as crowds try to reach the distribution sites. No private-sector donor or well-heeled country — China and oil-rich Gulf states are often mentioned by aid groups — have filled the significant gaps from shrinking U.S. and other Western spending. The future of U.N. aid, experts say, will rest where it belongs — with the world body's 193 member countries. 'We need to take that debate back into our countries, into our capitals, because it is there that you either empower the U.N. to act and succeed — or you paralyze it,' said Achim Steiner, administrator of the U.N. Development Program.
Hamilton Spectator
42 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
As the UN turns 80, its crucial humanitarian aid work faces a clouded future
KAKUMA, Kenya (AP) — At a refugee camp in northern Kenya, Aujene Cimanimpaye waits as a hot lunch of lentils and sorghum is ladled out for her and her nine children — all born while she has received United Nations assistance since fleeing her violence-wracked home in Congo in 2007. 'We cannot go back home because people are still being killed,' the 41-year-old said at the Kakuma camp, where the U.N. World Food Program and U.N. refugee agency help support more than 300,000 refugees. Her family moved from Nakivale Refugee Settlement in neighboring Uganda three years ago to Kenya, now home to more than a million refugees from dozens of conflict-hit east African countries. A few kilometers (miles) away at the Kalobeyei Refugee Settlement, fellow Congolese refugee Bahati Musaba, a mother of five, said that since 2016, 'U.N. agencies have supported my children's education — we get food and water and even medicine,' as well as cash support from WFP to buy food and other basics. This year, those cash transfers — and many other U.N. aid activities — have stopped, threatening to upend or jeopardize millions of lives. As the U.N. marks its 80th anniversary this month , its humanitarian agencies are facing one of the greatest crises in their history: The biggest funder — the United States — under the Trump administration and other Western donors have slashed international aid spending . Some want to use the money to build up national defense. Some U.N. agencies are increasingly pointing fingers at one another as they battle over a shrinking pool of funding, said a diplomat from a top donor country who spoke on condition of anonymity to comment freely about the funding crisis faced by some U.N. agencies. Such pressures, humanitarian groups say, diminish the pivotal role of the U.N. and its partners in efforts to save millions of lives — by providing tents, food and water to people fleeing unrest in places like Myanmar, Sudan, Syria and Venezuela, or helping stamp out smallpox decades ago. 'It's the most abrupt upheaval of humanitarian work in the U.N. in my 40 years as a humanitarian worker, by far,' said Jan Egeland, a former U.N. humanitarian aid chief who now heads the Norwegian Refugee Council. 'And it will make the gap between exploding needs and contributions to aid work even bigger.' 'Brutal' cuts to humanitarian aid programs U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has asked the heads of U.N. agencies to find ways to cut 20% of their staffs , and his office in New York has floated sweeping ideas about reform that could vastly reshape the way the United Nations doles out aid. Humanitarian workers often face dangers and go where many others don't — to slums to collect data on emerging viruses or drought-stricken areas to deliver water. The U.N. says 2024 was the deadliest year for humanitarian personnel on record, mainly due to the war in Gaza. In February, it suspended aid operations in the stronghold of Yemen's Houthi rebels, who have detained dozens of U.N. and other aid workers . Proponents say U.N. aid operations have helped millions around the world affected by poverty, illness, conflict, hunger and other troubles. Critics insist many operations have become bloated, replete with bureaucratic perks and a lack of accountability, and are too distant from in-the-field needs. They say postcolonial Western donations have fostered dependency and corruption, which stifles the ability of countries to develop on their own, while often U.N.-backed aid programs that should be time-specific instead linger for many years with no end in sight. In the case of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning WFP and the U.N.'s refugee and migration agencies, the U.S. has represented at least 40% of their total budgets, and Trump administration cuts to roughly $60 billion in U.S. foreign assistance have hit hard. Each U.N. agency has been cutting thousands of jobs and revising aid spending. 'It's too brutal what has happened,' said Egeland, alluding to cuts that have jolted the global aid community. 'However, it has forced us to make priorities ... what I hope is that we will be able to shift more of our resources to the front lines of humanity and have less people sitting in offices talking about the problem.' With the U.N. Security Council's divisions over wars in Ukraine and the Middle East hindering its ability to prevent or end conflict in recent years, humanitarian efforts to vaccinate children against polio or shelter and feed refugees have been a bright spot of U.N. activity. That's dimming now. Not just funding cuts cloud the future of UN humanitarian work Aside from the cuts and dangers faced by humanitarian workers, political conflict has at times overshadowed or impeded their work. UNRWA, the aid agency for Palestinian refugees, has delivered an array of services to millions — food, education, jobs and much more — in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan as well as in the West Bank and Gaza since its founding in 1948. Israel claims the agency's schools fan antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiment, which the agency denies. Israel says Hamas siphons off U.N. aid in Gaza to profit from it, while U.N. officials insist most aid gets delivered directly to the needy. 'UNRWA is like one of the foundations of your home. If you remove it, everything falls apart,' said Issa Haj Hassan, 38, after a checkup at a small clinic at the Mar Elias Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut. UNRWA covers his diabetes and blood pressure medication, as well as his wife's heart medicine. The United States, Israel's top ally, has stopped contributing to UNRWA; it once provided a third of its funding. Earlier this year, Israel banned the aid group , which has strived to continue its work nonetheless. Ibtisam Salem, a single mother of five in her 50s who shares a small one-room apartment in Beirut with relatives who sleep on the floor, said: 'If it wasn't for UNRWA we would die of starvation. ... They helped build my home, and they give me health care. My children went to their schools.' Especially when it comes to food and hunger, needs worldwide are growing even as funding to address them shrinks. 'This year, we have estimated around 343 million acutely food insecure people,' said Carl Skau, WFP deputy executive director. 'It's a threefold increase if we compare four years ago. And this year, our funding is dropping 40%. So obviously that's an equation that doesn't come together easily.' Billing itself as the world's largest humanitarian organization, WFP has announced plans to cut about a quarter of its 22,000 staff. The aid landscape is shifting One question is how the United Nations remains relevant as an aid provider when global cooperation is on the outs, and national self-interest and self-defense are on the upswing. The United Nations is not alone: Many of its aid partners are feeling the pinch. Groups like GAVI, which tries to ensure fair distribution of vaccines around the world, and the Global Fund, which spends billions each year to help battle HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, have been hit by Trump administration cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development. Some private-sector, government-backed groups also are cropping up, including the divisive Gaza Humanitarian Foundation , which has been providing some food to Palestinians. But violence has erupted as crowds try to reach the distribution sites . No private-sector donor or well-heeled country — China and oil-rich Gulf states are often mentioned by aid groups — have filled the significant gaps from shrinking U.S. and other Western spending. The future of U.N. aid, experts say, will rest where it belongs — with the world body's 193 member countries. 'We need to take that debate back into our countries, into our capitals, because it is there that you either empower the U.N. to act and succeed — or you paralyze it,' said Achim Steiner, administrator of the U.N. Development Program. ___ Chehayeb reported from Beirut and Keaten from Geneva. Associated Press writer Melina Walling in Hamburg, Germany, contributed to this report. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
As the UN turns 80, its crucial humanitarian aid work faces a clouded future
KAKUMA, Kenya (AP) — At a refugee camp in northern Kenya, Aujene Cimanimpaye waits as a hot lunch of lentils and sorghum is ladled out for her and her nine children — all born while she has received United Nations assistance since fleeing her violence-wracked home in Congo in 2007. 'We cannot go back home because people are still being killed,' the 41-year-old said at the Kakuma camp, where the U.N. World Food Program and U.N. refugee agency help support more than 300,000 refugees. Her family moved from Nakivale Refugee Settlement in neighboring Uganda three years ago to Kenya, now home to more than a million refugees from dozens of conflict-hit east African countries. A few kilometers (miles) away at the Kalobeyei Refugee Settlement, fellow Congolese refugee Bahati Musaba, a mother of five, said that since 2016, 'U.N. agencies have supported my children's education — we get food and water and even medicine,' as well as cash support from WFP to buy food and other basics. This year, those cash transfers — and many other U.N. aid activities — have stopped, threatening to upend or jeopardize millions of lives. As the U.N. marks its 80th anniversary this month, its humanitarian agencies are facing one of the greatest crises in their history: The biggest funder — the United States — under the Trump administration and other Western donors have slashed international aid spending. Some want to use the money to build up national defense. Some U.N. agencies are increasingly pointing fingers at one another as they battle over a shrinking pool of funding, said a diplomat from a top donor country who spoke on condition of anonymity to comment freely about the funding crisis faced by some U.N. agencies. Such pressures, humanitarian groups say, diminish the pivotal role of the U.N. and its partners in efforts to save millions of lives — by providing tents, food and water to people fleeing unrest in places like Myanmar, Sudan, Syria and Venezuela, or helping stamp out smallpox decades ago. 'It's the most abrupt upheaval of humanitarian work in the U.N. in my 40 years as a humanitarian worker, by far,' said Jan Egeland, a former U.N. humanitarian aid chief who now heads the Norwegian Refugee Council. 'And it will make the gap between exploding needs and contributions to aid work even bigger.' 'Brutal' cuts to humanitarian aid programs U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has asked the heads of U.N. agencies to find ways to cut 20% of their staffs, and his office in New York has floated sweeping ideas about reform that could vastly reshape the way the United Nations doles out aid. Humanitarian workers often face dangers and go where many others don't — to slums to collect data on emerging viruses or drought-stricken areas to deliver water. The U.N. says 2024 was the deadliest year for humanitarian personnel on record, mainly due to the war in Gaza. In February, it suspended aid operations in the stronghold of Yemen's Houthi rebels, who have detained dozens of U.N. and other aid workers. Proponents say U.N. aid operations have helped millions around the world affected by poverty, illness, conflict, hunger and other troubles. Critics insist many operations have become bloated, replete with bureaucratic perks and a lack of accountability, and are too distant from in-the-field needs. They say postcolonial Western donations have fostered dependency and corruption, which stifles the ability of countries to develop on their own, while often U.N.-backed aid programs that should be time-specific instead linger for many years with no end in sight. In the case of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning WFP and the U.N.'s refugee and migration agencies, the U.S. has represented at least 40% of their total budgets, and Trump administration cuts to roughly $60 billion in U.S. foreign assistance have hit hard. Each U.N. agency has been cutting thousands of jobs and revising aid spending. 'It's too brutal what has happened,' said Egeland, alluding to cuts that have jolted the global aid community. 'However, it has forced us to make priorities ... what I hope is that we will be able to shift more of our resources to the front lines of humanity and have less people sitting in offices talking about the problem.' With the U.N. Security Council's divisions over wars in Ukraine and the Middle East hindering its ability to prevent or end conflict in recent years, humanitarian efforts to vaccinate children against polio or shelter and feed refugees have been a bright spot of U.N. activity. That's dimming now. Not just funding cuts cloud the future of UN humanitarian work Aside from the cuts and dangers faced by humanitarian workers, political conflict has at times overshadowed or impeded their work. UNRWA, the aid agency for Palestinian refugees, has delivered an array of services to millions — food, education, jobs and much more — in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan as well as in the West Bank and Gaza since its founding in 1948. Israel claims the agency's schools fan antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiment, which the agency denies. Israel says Hamas siphons off U.N. aid in Gaza to profit from it, while U.N. officials insist most aid gets delivered directly to the needy. 'UNRWA is like one of the foundations of your home. If you remove it, everything falls apart,' said Issa Haj Hassan, 38, after a checkup at a small clinic at the Mar Elias Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut. UNRWA covers his diabetes and blood pressure medication, as well as his wife's heart medicine. The United States, Israel's top ally, has stopped contributing to UNRWA; it once provided a third of its funding. Earlier this year, Israel banned the aid group, which has strived to continue its work nonetheless. Ibtisam Salem, a single mother of five in her 50s who shares a small one-room apartment in Beirut with relatives who sleep on the floor, said: 'If it wasn't for UNRWA we would die of starvation. ... They helped build my home, and they give me health care. My children went to their schools.' Especially when it comes to food and hunger, needs worldwide are growing even as funding to address them shrinks. 'This year, we have estimated around 343 million acutely food insecure people,' said Carl Skau, WFP deputy executive director. 'It's a threefold increase if we compare four years ago. And this year, our funding is dropping 40%. So obviously that's an equation that doesn't come together easily.' Billing itself as the world's largest humanitarian organization, WFP has announced plans to cut about a quarter of its 22,000 staff. The aid landscape is shifting One question is how the United Nations remains relevant as an aid provider when global cooperation is on the outs, and national self-interest and self-defense are on the upswing. The United Nations is not alone: Many of its aid partners are feeling the pinch. Groups like GAVI, which tries to ensure fair distribution of vaccines around the world, and the Global Fund, which spends billions each year to help battle HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, have been hit by Trump administration cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development. Some private-sector, government-backed groups also are cropping up, including the divisive Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been providing some food to Palestinians. But violence has erupted as crowds try to reach the distribution sites. No private-sector donor or well-heeled country — China and oil-rich Gulf states are often mentioned by aid groups — have filled the significant gaps from shrinking U.S. and other Western spending. The future of U.N. aid, experts say, will rest where it belongs — with the world body's 193 member countries. 'We need to take that debate back into our countries, into our capitals, because it is there that you either empower the U.N. to act and succeed — or you paralyze it,' said Achim Steiner, administrator of the U.N. Development Program.
