EU Criticizes Beijing’s Support for War in Ukraine After Xi’s ‘Peace or War’ Comment

Udumbara Udumbara
Sep 4, 2025 - 09:56 Updated: Sep 4, 2025 - 03:10
0
EU Criticizes Beijing’s Support for War in Ukraine After Xi’s ‘Peace or War’ Comment
.
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping’s Sept. 3 remarks at a parade held in Beijing to celebrate a war anniversary drew criticism from the European Union when he proclaimed that the Chinese people under the CCP stood “on the right side of history.”
.
Xi was flanked by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in photo ops, forming what analysts have described as a new axis that seeks to upend the international order. Two dozen other foreign heads of state were also in attendance.

In his official address, Xi said that the world today “is faced with the choice of peace or war.”

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters in Brussels that this “autocratic” alliance’s ambitions were a reality that the EU needed to face.

“While Western leaders gather in diplomacy, an autocratic alliance is seeking a fast track to a new world order,” Kallas said.

“Looking at President Xi standing alongside the leaders of Russia, Iran, [and] North Korea in Beijing today, these aren’t just anti-Western optics: This is a direct challenge to the international system built on rules.

“And it’s not just symbolic. Russia’s war in Ukraine is being sustained by Chinese support. These are realities that Europe needs to confront.”

On the same day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated on Telegram that Russia had launched more than 500 drones and dozens of missiles that had hit infrastructure at 14 sites in Ukraine, and he said that he would be asking EU and U.S. partners for support at an upcoming summit in France.

The Chinese regime has refused to condemn the Russia–Ukraine war and has supported Russia, including by helping Russia evade sanctions and selling weapons to Moscow.

Putin also thanked Kim on Sept. 3 for his support in the war by means of sending North Korean troops to Ukraine. In response, Kim pledged to do “everything” he could to “assist” Moscow and said he considered it his “fraternal obligation.”

Russian state media on Sept. 3 also reported that Russia is helping China with its nuclear capabilities to achieve the CCP’s ambitions to overtake the United States.

Engin Eroglu, head of the European Parliament China committee, also criticized Beijing’s support for the war in Ukraine on social media.

“Two of China’s allies are directly responsible for the largest land war on European soil since World War II, yet China’s leader is talking about a choice between peace and war. China has already made its choice in 2022, it sided with the aggressor,” he wrote on X.
.
Sharing a photo of the three leaders, he stated: “For us Europeans, this means: We cannot just watch. We must defend our interests and values clearly. And we need unity—at home and abroad. The key question: How should Europe respond to these images?”
.
Eroglu noted that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was absent despite his trip to Beijing to attend an economic summit that took place just before the parade, underscoring the conditional and limited nature of the India–China relationship.
.
Few Western leaders were in attendance. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was the only EU head of state to attend. Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto attended the parade and met with Chinese officials. Daniel Andrews, former premier of Victoria, Australia, faced some criticism for his attendance. Former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr had also accepted an invitation to events in Beijing, but he was not at the parade.
.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told “Fox & Friends” in a Sept. 3 interview that Russia and China had grown closer during the previous administration and that President Donald Trump has tasked the U.S. Defense Department with rebuilding and establishing deterrence.

“Not because we seek conflict; we do not, and we’ve been clear about that with China and Russia and others,” he said.

“Demonstrations of parades are fine, but they don’t, hopefully, manifest in actual military conflict.

“We know what they believe and what they’re about. We also know how strong we are and the military advantages we have. They know that also.”

Reuters contributed to this report.
.
Read More