World
How China forgot promises and ‘debts’ to Ukraine, and backed Russia’s war
As Chinese leader Xi Jinping stood beside Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing last week, he claimed to be working towards a “true multilateralism” in which nations treat each other as equals and avoid “hegemonism and power politics” – a vocabulary the Chinese president returns to with regularity.
China is officially neutral in Russia’s war in Ukraine, and Xi has presented himself as a mediator, inviting Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and United States President Donald Trump to Beijing in December for talks.
But China is not equidistant from the neighbours at war.
Xi’s “no limits” alliance with Putin, pronounced just before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, puts him in the camp of an aggressor bent on “hegemonism”, experts tell Al Jazeera.
Three decades ago, however, China was Ukraine’s ally, not Russia’s.
When Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons in return for security guarantees from Russia in 1994, China lauded the move and, in December of that year, offered Kyiv nuclear security guarantees should it ever be attacked by a nuclear power.
In 2013, Ukraine and China signed a Treaty of Friendship undertaking that “none of the sides shall take any action that harms the sovereignty, security, or territorial integrity of the other side”.
Vita Golod, an expert on Chinese-Ukrainian relations at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, said Beijing has betrayed both undertakings.
“These commitments have so far remained largely rhetorical and have not translated into concrete security guarantees for Ukraine,” she told Al Jazeera. “In 2024, Ukraine attempted to remind China of these assurances during its appeal at the United Nations, calling for special security guarantees from nuclear states.”
Instead, China helped Russia scupper condemnations of its invasion of Ukraine in the UN Security Council.
A 12-point position paper China published in February 2023 refused to condemn Russia’s war and echoed the Kremlin’s talking points, such as initiating peace talks without the precondition of a Russian withdrawal from Ukraine.
“Beijing lacks the credibility to act as an honest broker between Ukraine and Russia,” said Plamen Tonchev, a China expert at the Institute of International Economic Relations (IIER), an Athens-based think tank. “I don’t think that it acted as a guarantor. On the contrary, it ditched Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s ‘strategic scepticism’ on China
In June 2024, Ukraine attempted to bring countries to a peace conference hosted by Switzerland. China did not attend, and Ukraine accused it of pressing other Asian nations to abstain.
At a speech in Singapore, Zelenskyy lashed out at Russia for “using Chinese influence in the region, using Chinese diplomats also”, and doing “everything to disrupt the peace summit”.
Xi has met Putin, whom European leaders openly refer to as a war criminal, five times since the full-scale invasion began.
“Ukraine has moved from caution to open strategic scepticism,” said Velina Tchakarova, founder of Vienna-based forecaster For a Conscious Experience (FACE). “China is no longer seen as a potential mediator but as a strategic adversary masked in neutral rhetoric.
“Ukraine is therefore deepening its integration with NATO, aligning with the G7 reconstruction framework, and engaging in tech and defence cooperation with Indo-Pacific democracies as part of a broader anti-revisionist coalition.”
Material interests
China moved quickly from diplomatic support and political rehabilitation to material assistance.
As early as February 2023, then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington had “information that they’re considering providing lethal support”, in a reference to China.
“The US is in no position to tell China what to do,” responded Wang Wenbin, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman.
Last April, Ukraine accused China of sending artillery shells and gunpowder to Russia and sanctioned three Chinese companies – an aeronautics firm and two industrial components companies.
The European Union followed. In May, it included Chinese firms in a 17th package of sanctions for supplying dual-use goods to Russia’s war machine.
China denied supplying deadly arms and said it strictly controlled the export of dual-use goods.
But a July investigative report by the Reuters news agency said Chinese firms were single-handedly sustaining Russian drone production by shipping engines mislabelled as “industrial refrigeration units” to Russia’s drone assembly plants.
Last month alone, Ukraine said it downed 6,173 drones launched by Russia.
China has also helped Russia financially by refusing to join the EU and the US in banning imports of Russian energy.
On the contrary, Putin and Xi signed an agreement last week to construct a new gas pipeline supplying China with as much as 50 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas a year, in addition to the 38bcm China receives from an existing pipeline. On August 29, China received its first shipment of liquefied natural gas from Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 project, a sanctioned liquefaction plant.
“Russia is cementing its political and economic dependence on China,” said Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation. “China is … dictating cheap prices, terms, and deadlines, forcing Moscow to sign agreements that turn it into an appendage.”
That dependence may go beyond energy revenues and industrial production. Ukraine suspects China is spying on Russia’s behalf. Last September, Zelenskyy said Chinese satellites were photographing Ukrainian nuclear power plants, possibly in preparation for a Russian strike.
In July, the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) arrested Chinese citizens after it allegedly found classified documents on their mobile phones with the specifications of Ukraine’s Neptune missile system. Ukraine used the Neptune to sink Russia’s Black Sea Fleet flagship, the Moskva, in 2022.
China’s debt to Ukraine
In addition to “Beijing’s pro-Russia neutrality”, as IIER’s Tonchev put it, China has overlooked a historic debt to Ukraine, said analysts.
“China owes Ukraine a lot. It would not now be a peer competitor to the US without significant transfers of technology from Ukraine,” said a European China expert on condition of anonymity.
In 1998, a Chinese national bought the hull of an unfinished Soviet aircraft carrier, the Varyag, from Ukraine and towed it to China, allegedly to convert it into a casino.
“The vessel was later refurbished, militarised, and launched as the Liaoning, laying the foundation for China’s modern aircraft carrier programme and broader naval modernisation,” said North Carolina University’s Golod.
“This early episode exemplified China’s exploitation of post-Soviet weakness to build its own military capabilities using Ukrainian technology,” said Tchakarova of FACE.
“It was the starting point in China’s strategy to build carrier battle groups and enhance the interoperability of its navy and air forces,” said Tonchev.
But another military technology target was of far greater interest.
In 2016, Beijing Skyrizon Aviation sought to acquire a controlling stake in Ukraine’s Motor Sich, one of the world’s top makers of engines for cargo aircraft and helicopters. Rich with Soviet aeronautics technology, the company was impoverished by the loss of its main client, Russia, which had waged war in Ukraine’s Donbas region. China saw Motor Sich as key to its rearmament.
But 2016 was a wake-up call for Europe, as Chinese appliance maker Midea acquired Kuka, Germany’s leading robotics company, and the China Ocean Shipping Company, a state-owned enterprise, bought the Piraeus Port Authority in Greece to facilitate Chinese exports to Europe.
China’s State Grid, another state behemoth, was found to have bought up a string of European electricity networks as the EU thought it was privatising them.
The capital spending had political implications. Eastern European countries like Hungary and Greece were breaking ranks with Europe on policy positions towards China.
“If we do not succeed … in developing a single strategy towards China, then China will succeed in dividing Europe,” German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said in September.
France, Germany and Italy requested a Europe-wide screening mechanism for foreign mergers and acquisitions, and the EU declared China a non-market economy.
In this political climate, and under US pressure, Ukraine stopped the sale of Motor Sich and nationalised the company. Beijing Skyrizon Aviation sued Ukraine for $4.5bn.
“Today … there is no active military or sensitive technological cooperation between Ukraine and China. The relationship has cooled significantly,” said Golod.
There were other interests.
“By 2021, China was the largest importer of Ukrainian barley and corn, accounting for over 30 percent of its corn imports. Ukrainian sunflower oil, iron ore, and titanium were crucial to China’s food security and industrial base,” said Tchakarova. All those goods now come from Russia.
China’s imports from Ukraine now amount to $4bn – a fraction of the $130bn it spends on Russian imports, according to the UN’s Comtrade database.
What, then, is China’s game in Ukraine? It appears to hold a balanced position. China helped discourage Putin from any use of nuclear weapons. It has not recognised the annexation of the four provinces Russia claims – Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson. It is interested in reconstruction. It is willing to host talks and possibly contribute troops to a peacekeeping force.
But, Tonchev said, self-interest drives some of these positions. China’s support of “territorial integrity” and the renunciation of separatism “suited both sides, with a view to Taiwan”, he said. And in discussions he has had with Chinese analysts, “China is unlikely to act as a donor … In fact, when I raise this question, there’s deafening silence.”
Ultimately, believed Tchakarova, China is strategically supporting Russia to drain Western power.
In Beijing, Putin and Xi openly supported a new world order. That, said Tchakarova, meant “replacing the Western-led, rules-based order with a multipolar system that tolerates spheres of influence and territorial revisionism”.
In claiming Ukrainian lands, Russia is clearly in favour of such revisionism in Europe.
World
Meta appeals landmark jury verdict that found it to blame for social media addiction for young users
Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, has appealed the verdict of a landmark social media addiction lawsuit in Los Angeles, challenging the jury’s determination that the company designed its platforms to hook young users without concern for their well-being.
Lawyers representing Meta filed a notice of appeal Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The lawyers will provide their arguments related to the appeal in subsequent court filings.
The case centered on a 20-year-old woman who said she became addicted to social media as a child and that it worsened her mental health struggles. The jury found that negligence by both Meta and Google-owned YouTube, which was also a defendant in the case, was a substantial factor in causing harm to the young woman, identified in court only by her initials, KGM, and her first name, Kaley.
The jury awarded her $3 million in damages and recommended an additional $3 million in punitive damages. Her lead attorney, Mark Lanier, said in a statement Friday that the legal team is expecting the appellate court to “continue the careful application of the law to this case, affirming the verdict of the trial court.”
A notice of appeal starts what can be a lengthy process. A Meta spokesperson provided a statement Friday that they also gave when the jury returned the verdict in March, saying that teen mental health is “profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app.”
José Castañeda, a spokesperson for Google, said in a statement Friday that YouTube plans to appeal and that “these are standard motions for this case to move forward.”
Meta and Google had each filed post-trial motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict — a routinely filed motion by defense lawyers asking a judge to toss out the jury’s verdict — and for a new trial. The trial judge, Carolyn B. Kuhl, denied those motions in early June.
Tech companies like Meta and YouTube are shielded from legal responsibility for content posted by third parties, based on Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. To get around those protections, the plaintiffs focused on the design features of the platforms like “infinite scroll,” or the endless nature of feeds on the platforms, and autoplay functions.
Questions about encroaching into content-related territory were the subject of many objections from the defendants throughout the five-week trial.
The verdict in this case came during a time of legal woes for Meta. A jury in New Mexico returned a verdict finding that Meta’s platforms harm children’s mental health and safety just one day before the California jury reached its decision. The New Mexico jury, siding with state prosecutors who brought the case, landed on a penalty of $375 million. Meta has said the company disagrees with the verdict and will also appeal in that case.
“We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement at the time of the verdicts and again on Friday.
Kaley’s case was a first-of-its-kind lawsuit, and the verdict could influence the outcome of thousands of similar lawsuits accusing social media companies of deliberately causing harm. TikTok and Snapchat parent company Snap Inc. were also initially named as defendants in the case, but each settled for undisclosed sums before the trial began.
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Israel’s leaders are publicly signaling that their country is prepared to strike Iran for a third time, while a U.S. official tells Fox News Digital that Washington remains closely coordinated with Jerusalem.
“The IDF is on high alert and prepared to resume the campaign, regain air superiority, and carry out an independent Israeli strike against Iran to eliminate threats — even for a third time,” Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Minister Israel Katz said Thursday at a graduation ceremony for the Israeli Air Force’s newest pilots.
“If we have to return, we will return with even greater force,” Katz added.
ISRAEL DEFENSE CHIEF WARNS STRIKES ON IRAN COULD RESUME SOON, SIGNALS CAMPAIGN NOT OVER
U.S. Central Command shared this footage in a July 8, 2026, press release about strikes against Iran. (CENTCOM)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also warned Thursday that Israel’s campaign against Iran was not finished and said Tehran would not be permitted to obtain a nuclear weapon, regardless of any agreement reached with Washington.
“The war has not yet ended,” Netanyahu said at the air force ceremony. “Alongside the old challenges, new challenges are emerging. Axes are falling, and axes are rising. We are paying attention to this. We are prepared for every scenario.”
Two Israeli sources told CNN Friday that the Trump administration does not currently want Israel to participate in the latest U.S. strikes against Iran.
“Netanyahu would really want to join the U.S. strikes, but the U.S. doesn’t want Israel involved at the moment,” one of the sources told CNN.
A U.S. official denied the report, telling Fox News Digital, “This is fake news. The United States has a strong relationship with Israel, which contributed to the resounding success of Operation Midnight Hammer and Operation Epic Fury. We remain in close coordination with our Israeli partners.”
Israel first launched a major campaign against Iran in June 2025, with the United States later joining the fighting by striking the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities. On Feb. 28, the two allies launched a new, coordinated military campaign against Iran.
While Israeli leaders are openly presenting the military as ready for another campaign, some Israeli officials and analysts say there is little appetite for renewed fighting unless it produces a clear strategic result.
The public warnings may overstate Israel’s desire to reenter the fighting, said Israeli analyst and journalist for Israeli newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth, Nadav Eyal.
“On the record, Israel is signaling that it is prepared and even eager to strike Iran. But off the record, sources are saying that it is anything but that,” Eyal told Fox News Digital. “The reason is clear: Any Israeli strike in Iran will lead to Iranian ballistic missile attacks against Israel.”
US CLAWS BACK KEY CONCESSION TO IRAN AFTER FRESH ATTACKS ON COMMERCIAL SHIPS IN STRAIT OF HORMUZ
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, from left, US President Donald Trump and US Vice President JD Vance during a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. Trump insisted Egypt and Jordan will take in Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, dismissing the countries’ refusal to accept people from the war-shattered territory. Photographer: Shawn Thew/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images (Getty Images)
Eyal said the domestic political consequences could make Netanyahu reluctant to begin another round of fighting, particularly as Israel approaches another election.
“If these strikes are meant to provide meaningful, strategic change, it is something the prime minister can sell to the public,” Eyal said. “But if the intention is only to use Israel as leverage, why should Israelis again experience a couple of weeks or more of sitting in safe rooms and losing their summer vacations, children’s day camps and summer camps? That could play out badly for the prime minister politically.”
“The truth is that Israel was not really enthusiastic about another strike,” he added. “That doesn’t mean it is not going to happen. If President Trump demands that Netanyahu join, it is very hard to see the Israelis saying no. But right now, I don’t see any passion for it.”
The diplomatic outreach continued even as Trump declared that the ceasefire with Iran was over.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran has asked us to continue ‘talks.’ We have agreed to do so, but the United States has stated to them, in no uncertain terms, that the Cease Fire is OVER!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
A source with knowledge of the situation told Fox News that Qatari negotiators have traveled to Iran, in coordination with the United States, to meet with Iranian officials in an effort to de-escalate the situation and create the conditions for negotiations to resume.
On Thursday, Netanyahu and Trump spoke by phone, according to the Israeli prime minister’s office, which said the two agreed to continue coordinating across several regional fronts. Trump briefed Netanyahu on American operations in the Gulf, the statement said.
NETANYAHU REJECTS REPORTS OF A RIFT WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP, SAYS THE TWO REMAIN ALIGNED ON IRAN
A satellite image shows damage at the control tower in the port of Chabahar, Iran, July 9, 2026, after the U.S. military said July 8, 2026, it launched fresh strikes on Iran to keep the Strait of Hormuz open to shipping. ( 2026 PLANET LABS PBC/Handout via Reuters)
The military warnings came as the Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Israel had provided the United States with intelligence about what is described as a fresh Iranian plot to assassinate Trump.
The developments follow renewed attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, where U.S. naval officials said the maritime threat remained “severe.” U.S. Naval Forces Central Command reminded commercial vessels Friday that an expanded southern route through the strait remained open and that no controlling authority could require ships to pay a fee for passage.
A U.S. official told Fox News on background that Iran’s attacks against commercial vessels were “acts of terrorism” and constituted failed performance under the memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran.
“The United States is still committed to finding a resolution, and technical talks continue,” the official said. “Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon.”
Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser, a former senior Israeli military intelligence officer who now heads the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, said Israel had never regarded the memorandum as an adequate guarantee.
“From Israel’s perspective, the MOU was never a good deal,” Kuperwasser told Fox News Digital, speaking of the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran.
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CENTCOM shared footage of strikes against airplanes amid Iran war (U.S. Central Command on X)
“Israel should be on high alert, ready to face an Iranian attack and prepared to strike back if necessary,” he added.
For now, Israel’s leaders appear to be leaving Iran — and Washington — with little doubt that they are prepared to act. Whether the United States allows Israel to join the renewed campaign, however, could determine whether the latest confrontation remains limited or develops into another full-scale regional war.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.
Published on •Updated
Belgium’s three regions announced on Friday that they would introduce a road tax next year that foreign drivers transiting the country would also have to pay.
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The country does not currently charge drivers to use its highways and the issue of introducing some form of payment has been debated for years.
“Everyone who uses our roads must contribute fairly to their maintenance,” said the transport minister for the southern Wallonia region, François Desquesnes.
Starting on 1 May 2027 drivers will need to register their vehicle and pay the road tax, with day passes available for drivers driving across the country.
An annual pass for a zero-emission car will cost €90 and up to €125 for higher polluting vehicles.
Road cameras that catch cars that haven’t paid for a pass will incur a fine of €70.
In Belgium, the individual regions are responsible for maintaining roads and motorways.
Currently, drivers can use almost all highways toll-free but the possibility of an introducing a charge has been under discussion for several years.
The revenue would be used for the operation and maintenance of the road network.
The proposed toll still needs final approval from the regions and European authorities.
According to the chairman of the liberal-conservative MR party, the government intends to offset the new toll by lowering other taxes for Belgians.
Additional sources • AFP
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