Canada Cannot Support Ukraine and Ignore China’s Support for Russia’s War

By Mehmet Tohti

OTTAWA — Canada needs to confront the war behind the war.

We cannot keep sending Ukraine weapons while ignoring the industrial lifeline that keeps Russia fighting.

Canada is making a generational commitment to Ukraine. Ottawa has entered long-term defence-production arrangements with Kyiv, including plans to manufacture millions of drones and deepen military cooperation. It is a significant commitment — and one that reflects Canada’s determination to see Ukraine withstand Russian aggression.

But a fundamental blind spot lies at the heart of Canada’s strategy.

While Ottawa is preparing to support Ukraine’s military capacity for decades, it is also maintaining diplomatic and military dialogue with Beijing, whose economic and technological relationship with Moscow has become a major source of support for Russia’s war effort.

As Reuters reported in April 2024, senior U.S. officials said China supplied 90 per cent of Russia’s microelectronics imports in 2023, including components used to manufacture missiles, tanks and aircraft.

The concern extends beyond Ukraine.

CNBC reported on Sept. 15 that a Pentagon assessment put the cost of the Iran war at US$33.4 billion through June 29, with munitions use leaving strategic inventory shortfalls. Sharing the story, the U.S. House Select Committee on China described Beijing as “Iran’s chief enabler, helping sustain its attacks and terror. China and Iran are working hand-in-hand against America.”

For Canada, the warning is clear.

Dialogue with China is necessary to avoid miscalculation. Pretending that China’s relationship with Russia is not central to Russia’s war is not.

The West has spent years asking the same question: How much more should we give Ukraine? More ammunition. More air defence. More drones. More intelligence. More money. All of this is necessary if Ukraine is to survive.

But there is another question we have not confronted with the same urgency: How does Russia keep replacing what Ukraine destroys?

The answer cannot be found solely on the battlefield. Russia’s war machine depends on factories, energy, technology, supply chains, financial networks and access to components that allow its defence industry to continue producing.

This is the war behind the war. And China is a crucial part of it.

Beijing does not have to put Chinese soldiers on Ukrainian soil to influence the outcome. It can help sustain the economic and industrial conditions that allow Russia to keep fighting while avoiding the enormous cost of direct military involvement.

That creates an extraordinary strategic situation. Russia is bleeding resources. Europe is spending more on defence. Western countries are drawing down weapons stockpiles. Ukraine is paying the ultimate price.

China benefits without sending troops.

From Beijing’s perspective, a prolonged conflict yields immense benefits. Russia becomes more dependent on China. Europe and the US remain focused on a war that consumes military equipment, money and diplomatic attention. Meanwhile, China gains time to expand its own industrial capacity, strengthen its military, and deepen its influence over Moscow.

Canada has rightly recognized that Ukraine’s security is connected to our own. A Russian victory would challenge NATO, embolden authoritarian powers and undermine the principle that borders cannot simply be changed by force.

Sanctions lose their effectiveness when they are circumvented through backdoor channels. Western governments must ask which technologies and components are ultimately finding their way into Russian weapons — and what leverage the West possesses over Beijing.

If Western leaders sit across the table from Xi Jinping, the conversation cannot simply be about whether China will encourage Vladimir Putin to negotiate. The harder question must be: What is Beijing prepared to do to reduce Russia’s ability to wage war?

We cannot build a twenty-year strategy for supporting Ukraine while treating China’s role in sustaining Russia as an unrelated diplomatic matter. The two policies have to fit together.

If they do not, we risk spending enormous amounts of money fighting the symptoms while leaving the underlying cause untouched.

Ukraine needs weapons, money, air defence and drones. But Ukraine also needs its allies to attack the strategic conditions that allow Russia to regenerate its military power.

That means strengthening Western defence production, closing technological loopholes and having an honest conversation with Beijing about the consequences of helping Russia sustain its war machine.

The question for Canada is therefore bigger than how much we are prepared to give Ukraine.

It is whether we are prepared to change the conditions that make the war possible.

We cannot win an industrial war by endlessly supplying the battlefield while leaving the supply lines behind it intact.

That is the war behind the war. And the West needs to confront it.

Mehmet Tohti is Executive Director of Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project based in Ottawa.