Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna urged Beijing to rethink its stance on cooperation with Moscow, warning that China’s ongoing economic ties with Russia are helping to sustain the war in Ukraine.
It came after Tsahkna met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi and other officials in a two-day visit to Beijing, the first by an Estonian minister in a decade.
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Speaking to Reuters in an interview published on Wednesday, the Foreign Minister said he had appealed to Beijing to join European and US efforts to push for a ceasefire and rein in Russian aggression.
“China says that they are not part of this military conflict but I was very clear that China has huge leverage over Russia, every week more and more, because the Russian economy is weak,” Tsahkna said.
His comments also came amid renewed scrutiny of China’s role in funding Russia’s war effort, which has been a crunch point in EU-China relations since the full-scale invasion, though tensions have heightened recently as Donald Trump attempted to put pressure on China to halt its support for Moscow.
Trump last week softened his approach, saying that he would “work together” with China’s President Xi Jinping to end the war after a whirlwind tour in Asia during which he met Xi in South Korea.
“We agree the sides are locked in fighting, and sometimes you have to let them fight – crazy – but [Xi] is going to help us, and we’re going to work together on Ukraine. Not a lot more we can do,” the US president said, adding that the pair had discussed China’s purchases of Russian oil.
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Alluding to the trip, Tsahkna said: “President Trump said as well that this pressure (on Russia) is very important, that China should join. And I think that China can do a lot if it joined the pressure on Russia to finish the war.”
Tsahkna said he also raised concerns about China’s supply of dual-use critical components to Russia. China has long denied this allegation, claiming it maintains tight control over the export of these items.
US experts previously told Kyiv Post that Russia’s military effort would look like “garbage” without its alliances with Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang and would likely be crippled by Western sanctions.
In the interview on Wednesday, Tsahkna also raised the issue of Russian drone incursions and airspace violations in European NATO countries.
“It’s not a spillover of the Ukraine crisis. It is well-planned, well-organised tests of NATO unity,” Tsahkna said.