China & Russia: Is China Losing Patience with Russia’s War?

For months, political observers have been confronted with growing evidence that the formerly durable consensus in the West around the need to support Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s war of territorial expansion is eroding. This developing trend has been met with both trepidation and jubilance, depending on the observer’s political affinities. The risks associated with drawing a potentially fallacious straight-line projection into the future notwithstanding, the trend is real, and no one can afford to ignore it.

And yet, Ukraine’s supporters aren’t the only parties adjacent to this conflict who are losing patience with it. American officials warn that they are prepared to release intelligence indicating that China may soon provide Moscow with material support for its war, and the five-alarm reaction this prospect is generating in Western capitals suggests it may be imminent. If China went ahead with what the United States alleges it intends to do, that would transform what is already the largest land war in Europe since 1945 into a proxy conflict between the world’s great powers. But by even seriously considering Vladimir Putin’s request for aid, the Chinese Communist Party has also signaled its growing unease with the course of the war.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.

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For months, political observers have been confronted with growing evidence that the formerly durable consensus in the West around the need to support Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s war of territorial expansion is eroding. This developing trend has been met with both trepidation and jubilance, depending on the observer’s political affinities. The risks associated with drawing a potentially fallacious straight-line projection into the future notwithstanding, the trend is real, and no one can afford to ignore it.

And yet, Ukraine’s supporters aren’t the only parties adjacent to this conflict who are losing patience with it. American officials warn that they are prepared to release intelligence indicating that China may soon provide Moscow with material support for its war, and the five-alarm reaction this prospect is generating in Western capitals suggests it may be imminent. If China went ahead with what the United States alleges it intends to do, that would transform what is already the largest land war in Europe since 1945 into a proxy conflict between the world’s great powers. But by even seriously considering Vladimir Putin’s request for aid, the Chinese Communist Party has also signaled its growing unease with the course of the war.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.