The Chinese Foreign Ministry warned on Thursday that any attempts divide the governments of China and Russia are “doomed to fail,” an apparent response to Secretary of State Marco Rubio telling Breitbart News in an exclusive this week the Trump administration is trying to avoid a situation in which Russia is “completely dependent on the Chinese because we have cut them off.”
“China and Russia are two major countries,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters during his regular briefing on Thursday. “Our bilateral relationship has a strong internal driving force. It will not be affected by any third party.”
“Both China and Russia have long-term development strategies and foreign policies. No matter how the international landscape changes, our relationship shall move forward at its own pace,” he continued. “The U.S. attempt of sowing discord between China and Russia is doomed to fail.”
Lin was responding to a request from Bloomberg News to respond to comments Rubio made that “Russia is too reliant on China.” The English-language transcript of the briefing did not note that Bloomberg cited any particular interview, but Rubio discussed the subject most recently in an interview with Breitbart News’ Matthew Boyle. The South China Morning Post reported the remarks as a response to those comments in particular.
Rubio: Trump Is Going on Offense Against China – “Make It Costly to Be America’s Enemy”
“I don’t know if we’ll ever be successful completely at peeling them off of a relationship with the Chinese,” Rubio said of Russia in the interview. “I also don’t think having China and Russia at each other’s neck is good for global stability because they’re both nuclear powers, but I do think we’re in a situation now where the Russians have become increasingly dependent on the Chinese and that’s not a good outcome either if you think about it.”
The comments were made in the context of Rubio leading diplomatic efforts with the Russian government, which began on a major scale with the secretary of state meeting his Russian analogs in Saudi Arabia this month, focusing on ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but also rehabilitating U.S.-Russian relations after the disastrous presidency of Joe Biden. Both Washington and Moscow indicated that the talks went well and are on the path to scheduling an in-person meeting between President Donald Trump and strongman Vladimir Putin.
Rubio warned in his remarks to Breitbart News that Russia becoming “a permanent junior partner to China in the long term” would be a formidable challenge for the United States and a situation that would also hurt Russia.
In my conversation with @MBoyle1, I emphasize that the war between Russia and Ukraine needs to end. It needs to end in a way that is enduring. At the UN this week, we took a historic step, passing the first Security Council resolution endorsing the path to peace. pic.twitter.com/3xinnskmMY
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) February 26, 2025
“Even ten years from now or five years from now, if this trend continues, we could find ourselves in a situation where whether Russia wants to improve its relations with the U.S. or not,” Rubio predicted, “they can’t because they’ve become completely dependent on the Chinese because we have cut them off. I don’t know if that’s a good outcome for us.”
“I think having a situation where the Russians are permanently a junior partner to China, having to do whatever China says to do because they are dependent on them, I don’t think that’s a good outcome for Russia and it’s not a good outcome for America or for Europe or the world,” he emphasized.
Rubio and Russian Foreign Ministry Sergey Lavrov engaging directly appears to have significantly sidelined China on the Ukraine war issue. The Communist Party claims to have the world’s best diplomatic relationship with Russia and has endeavored to maintain friendly ties to Ukraine by ensnaring it in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a global debt trap scheme in which China offers predatory loans to vulnerable countries. Beijing also attempted to present a “peace deal” for the Russian invasion in 2023, though this was largely ignored by both sides. The deal largely revolved around demanding that Russia and China “calm down as soon as possible,” with no significant details on how to smooth out tensions.
In what appeared to be an attempt to assuage any concerns in Beijing that the Communist Party has lost relevance to Russia, Putin spoke directly to genocidal communist dictator Xi Jinping this week after holding a phone conversation with Trump and following the Rubio-Lavrov talks. Xi used the opportunity to promote the disregarded Chinese “peace plan,” with no known effect.
China has also tried to insert itself into planning for the expected in-person meeting between Trump and Putin. The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, reported in mid-February that the Chinese government reached out to Trump to offer itself as a host for the Putin talks.
“The Chinese proposal doesn’t include any commitment from Beijing to reduce its enormous economic support for Moscow,” the newspaper added.
The report included a comment from an anonymous “White House official” who said the proposal was “not viable at all.” President Trump himself identified Saudi Arabia as the likeliest international host in remarks to reporters prior to the publication of that report.
