Russia Ukraine war: China shies away from blaming anyone for Bucha massacre, insists on fair probe

In an apparent display of Russian-Chinese friendship and an open anti-USA stance, Chinese state media avoided blaming obvious Russian atrocities in Ukraine and called for a probe. Russia calling the satellite images of bodies lying on the streets in the small Ukrainian town of Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, “staged”, has led to open discussions on Weibo, the Chinese social media. Many Chinese aren’t buying the state-sponsored pro-Russian verbatim, with voices calling for an end to the war and trying Russia for war crimes.

It might be recalled that China has repeatedly refrained from voicing its opinion against Moscow ever since the Russians began their onslaught against its neighbour, Ukraine. The reason cited by Moscow had been to “denazify” and prevent the “genocide” of Russian speakers, by Kyiv. China’s initial reaction to the news about the Russian invasion was played down and was called “fake news”. Chinese media calls the Russian invasion a “special military operation” just like what Moscow says. China by and large supports the Russian idea that NATO hegemonic stance to increase its dominion and pressurize Russian interests in Europe are the prime causes of this military operation.

In hindsight, the Chinese are deeply concerned about USA’s financial clout and capitalist doctrine taking over the world and are relying on Russian friendship as a counter to succeed in South Asia. China appears to peddle Russian opinion on the Ukrainian conflict to the world and people at home. The Russian camaraderie was on full display when the Russian Embassy in Beijing denied the accusations of Ukraine against war crimes in Irpin, another city in Ukraine. The People’s Daily, the newspaper of the Communist Party of China cautioned its readers, “'Bucha Incident' not to be used as pretext for inflaming the situation," screamed the headline. China pulled up the USA for provoking the war by providing arms to Ukraine and at the same time stalling Russian and Ukrainian peace talks.


The world hopes for restraint as the war continues and maybe China would play the role of peace broker.