10/2/23

China’s state media on Monday published interviews with anti-war American commentators who predicted declining public support for Ukraine as the U.S. Congress heaved a sigh of relief following a last-minute spending compromise to avoid a government shutdown.

The Global Times newspaper, a hawkish tabloid published by the Communist Party‘s propaganda department, said weary Americans were likely to turn inward amid a sluggish economic rebound. “War fatigue,” it said, may put the White House under pressure to slash funding for Kyiv in an election year.

The United States is Ukraine’s strongest backer, having directed four rounds of assistance totaling about $113 billion, about half of which was military aid, since the war began. President Joe Biden has sought an additional $24 billion since August, but Congress voted to forgo $6 billion in additional security assistance in order to pass a stopgap funding bill just shy of the October 1 deadline.

Speaking at the White House on Sunday, Biden said bipartisan support for Ukraine remained strong despite the close call. “We will not walk away,” he said. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s months-long counteroffensive against invading Russian forces continues as the war approaches its second full year.

Commentators in the Global Times suggested the recent impasse was a sign of things to come as Biden’s reelection bid faces real challenges from a GOP opposition that includes former President Donald Trump. Instead of more funding for Ukraine, public sentiment could favor domestic “social programs or infrastructure needs,” one said—or Democrats and Republicans could try to outdo one another by becoming even more hawkish.

Since the start of Russia’s expanded war in Ukraine, however, China and its state-run press have sought to undermine U.S. staying power for another reason—Taiwan, the democratically governed island long coveted by successive leaders of the Communist Party.

America’s attention, if waning on the Kremlin, would conceivably turn to Beijing, the interviewees said. However, U.S. division over further aid for Ukraine could reflect similar future sentiments about American public support for Taiwan, the Global Times guests argued—a scenario that would benefit the Chinese government’s aims.

The U.S.’s “one China” policy states it does not recognize Taiwan’s statehood and maintains only unofficial ties with the island’s government. However, its long-running position of “strategic ambiguity” means it will neither commit nor rule out a military defense of Taiwan in the event of an armed conflict, despite Biden’s offhand comments suggesting otherwise.

Taipei, meanwhile, has long rejected China’s sovereignty claims and has vowed to defend itself with its own capabilities. The Taiwanese leadership has repeated this position amid renewed attention on the Taiwan Strait following Russia‘s invasion.

Some 40 percent of Americans believed their country was supporting Ukraine “too much,” according to a poll conducted in September by ABC News and The Washington Post, while roughly half thought U.S. aid was currently the “right amount” or “too little.”

A survey commissioned by Newsweek in April found nearly six in 10 Republican or Democratic voters were in favor of a military intervention by the United States and its allies in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

https://www.newsweek.com/china-global-times-us-aid-russia-ukraine-war-1831400