Reid Standish
A recently released 800-page cache of contracts and correspondence shows that Russia is helping China prepare its military for a potential invasion of Taiwan, according to an independent think tank that received the files and had them independently verified.
Oleksandr V. Danylyuk, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), who obtained the leaked files along with his co-author, Jack Watling, spoke to RFE/RL about what the findings mean for future China-Russia military cooperation and why Russia may be in favor of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the self-governing island of 23 million people that Beijing claims as its territory.
According to RUSI, the documents indicate that Moscow agreed in 2023 to sell a suite of military equipment to China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), including assault vehicles, anti-tank guns, and airborne armored personnel carriers. The armored vehicles would be equipped with Chinese specifications, and Russia would train a battalion of special Chinese paratroopers to use them.
he contracts also state that Russia would transfer technologies to China that will allow it to make similar weapons.
Such an agreement would bolster China’s air maneuver capabilities, one of the few areas where Moscow’s military still has an edge over the PLA, and intensify concerns that Beijing could seize infrastructure inland even as it storms ports and beaches along the coast as part of a potential invasion.
The approximately 800 pages of contracts and collateral materials “appear genuine” and details from within the documents have been independently verified, RUSI said. However, there is also the possibility that parts of the documents have been altered or omitted, it added.
Moscow has not commented on the leaked documents.
The interview below has been condensed and edited for clarity.
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