Russia and China have held a secret military cooperation forum for six years and worries Europe

The institutions of the European Union and NATO They have known for years that China cooperates militarily with Russiafor example assisting with dual-use components, civil and military, in the Russian war effort in Ukraine. Brussels has always had this military cooperation under the radar and has gone so far as to sanction Chinese companies. NATO periodically issues warnings and Ukraine has shown Europeans and Americans Russian drones with Chinese technology.

The leaked documents reported on Thursday by these three media outlets speak of a Russian-Chinese Military Technology Forum that has been operating for at least six years under a regime of secrecy. They would have already met five times and the sixth would be at the end of this year in Saint Petersburg.

The information is very relevant because it is a leap forward in the perception that Brussels and Washington had – or claimed to have – until now of Russian-Chinese cooperation, which they saw above all technological. The documents assure, however, that after several meetings between 2020 and 2022In 2023, a meeting between 16 Chinese and three Russian representatives served to agree on the joint development of an integrated missile defense system, capable of intercepting medium-range hypersonic and ballistic missiles (up to 4,000 kilometers). If they achieve this, they would achieve a capability that only the American Patriot and Thaad anti-missile systems have today.

The journalistic investigation explains that the Chinese and Russians have targeted the Starlink satellite network, owned by tycoon Elon Musk, ally of US President Donald Trump and the richest man on the planet, as well as an enemy of the European Union and supporter of the far-right political parties that want to destroy it.

The media in the investigation recount the presentation made by Chinese delegates at the 2023 meeting, in which a representative of the Chinese state company Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation proposed the creation of an “anti-Starlink alliance.” They studied and supposedly began to develop various options, from electronic interference to cyber attacks and the physical destruction of satellites in orbit.

It is about finding a way to neutralize one of the clearest advantages that Ukraine has in the defense war against Russia, the one given to it by Elon Musk’s Starlink service. China estimates that Taiwan could tryr use the same system in the event of a Chinese attack.

The journalistic investigation also says that one of the most important aspects of the secret military cooperation between Russia and China is precisely how China is drawing lessons from the Ukrainian war scenario for a hypothetical war of conquest of Taiwan. Chinese officials draw lessons from Ukraine, thanks to that cooperation with China, in understanding how kyiv uses air defense, electronic warfare, drone swarms and satellite communications. Russia, for its part, receives industrial and technological cooperation because more than four years of war bites hard into its military industry.

At the time of writing this note there were no official reactions from NATO or the European Union. German Chancellor Johann Wadephul said the revelation was “extremely worrying”. One of the aspects that could lead the European Union to approve sanctions against Beijing, with the consequent trade war that the Chinese Government would unleash, would be the fact that, according to the investigation, up to 200 Russian military drone operators were trained in Chinese territory.

China has already reacted by saying that the conclusions of the investigation are “slander”, according to agency cables. The European Union is faced with a dilemma. Their attitude for months has been to try not to generate conflicts to keep the business relationship within its channel. The last meeting, at the beginning of last week, gave Chinese and European trade representatives until October to advance sectoral trade pacts to avoid a trade war.