While India announced on Sunday that it has begun the final leg of Operation Ganga, an evacuation attempt for Indians stranded in Ukraine, distressed Chinese citizens stranded in Ukraine have been sharing snippets of their lives. They are blaming their own government for failing to help them in their time of need.
Chao, a 25-year-old Chinese student, recounted feeling helpless and abandoned after being told to fend for himself by the Chinese embassy in Ukraine. Chao is one of the 6000 Chinese nationals who were in Ukraine when Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine.
“The embassy told us to find a way to solve the problems we’re facing by ourselves,” Chao told AFP from a small town outside Chernihiv, where he has taken refuge with a local family.
Chao took to WeChat, the Chinese messaging app to criticise the communist government back in China for shrugging off its responsibility. “They said that fighting is everywhere, they aren’t able to do anything… Shouldn’t this be a nation’s responsibility?” asked Chao.
He added, “We want to leave, but there are no cars. I’m afraid I’ll be killed if I attempt to walk several hundred kilometres.”
Chao isn’t the only Chinese national who has publicly chastised China’s Xi Jinping administration for abandoning its people and leaving them to fend for themselves.
Indeed, social media images have been circulating depicting large groups of Chinese students still stranded in Ukraine, crammed into rooms to be alive amid the fighting and shelling, with some running out of food.
One student posted, “There are still 138 people here in the Sumy region of Ukraine who haven’t been evacuated yet. Please can the relevant departments coordinate and let us go home.”
Fang Lei, a Chinese national stranded in the southeastern city of Melitópol, claimed he tried to make similar calls on Chinese social media but was blocked.
“There are a lot of people trapped in Kharkiv, and this piece of information will be covered up immediately,” Fang said.
“Comments and likes are not allowed. Those of us who cannot evacuate from the war zone don’t get a mention,” Fang said adding, “If I get blown up, then at least I have left a note … I want the world to know what it feels like to be left behind to die.”
“Chinese students are getting bombed in Ukraine, and the embassy hasn’t been very proactive in protecting them, nor offered any aftercare service,” another Chinese national Wang Longde was quoted as saying.
Chinese nationals stuck in Ukraine condemn embassy’s conflicting advice
In fact, many Chinese nationals trapped in Ukraine have criticized the embassy’s conflicting advice since the Russian attack began.
At the outset of the invasion, the Chinese embassy in Kyiv advised citizens to place Chinese flags on their vehicles to avert attacks. However, less than 48 hours later, it changed its mind and advised expats not to reveal their nationality.
According to The People’s Daily, a state-run news outlet, several Chinese students in Ukraine have said that they are feeling unsafe because of the perceived strong ties between China and Russia.
China pursuing trade with Russia, opposes sanctions posed by the US, EU against Russia
Notably, China has been carefully playing with words ever since its strong ally Russia has launched an attack on Ukraine. President Xi Jinping’s government has tried to distance itself from Russia’s offensive but avoided criticizing Moscow. The government has offered to act as a mediator and denounced trade and financial sanctions against Russia.
In fact, according to the reports, China has opposed the sanctions imposed upon Russia by the United States, European Union and has said that it will continue to carry out normal trade cooperation with Moscow. It has, in fact, reverted back to its own currency in pursuing trade with Russia. “China and Russia will continue to carry out normal trade cooperation in the spirit of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit”, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin at a regular press briefing in Beijing.
He added that economic sanctions are not a solution to the problems, instead, they create new ones. He also demanded that the US should not harm the legitimate rights and interests of China and other parties when handling the Ukraine issue and its relations with Russia.
The US shared intelligence with China on Russia’s troop buildup near Ukraine, China shared the info with Moscow
In the last three months, the United States officials met high-level Chinese officials over half a dozen times in a bid to use China’s influence to convince Russia not to carry out military attacks on Ukraine. Senior Biden administration officials held urgent meetings with the Chinese diplomats and presented them intelligence showing Russia’s troop buildup around Ukraine.
The Biden administration was desperate to stop Russians and thus shared intelligence with China on Russia’s troop buildup in hopes that President Xi Jinping would step in. The officials privy to this information said that the Biden administration shared high-level info with its adversary to gain support from China to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine.
However, the Chinese government repeatedly rebuffed the efforts and instead turned over the intelligence data to Moscow.
