The Secret Training and the Trade War: How China’s Covert Support for Russia Shattered EU Relations

The program was formalized in a dual‑language Russian‑Chinese military agreement signed in Beijing on 2 July 2025, a document Reuters says it reviewed directly. Internal Russian military reports cited in the same story indicate that training took place at Chinese facilities in Beijing and the eastern city of Nanjing . Intelligence sources say some of the soldiers who completed the course later returned to fight in Ukraine .

By 11–12 June 2026, the EU had shifted from cautious intelligence-sharing to public confirmation. An EU senior official told journalists that “the training of Russian soldiers by the Chinese has been confirmed by our services” and noted that “hundreds” of personnel were involved . The European Parliament had already laid the political groundwork: in an April 2026 resolution, it formally labeled China a “key enabler of the Russian war effort” .

Beijing and Moscow deny the reports. The Kremlin described them as unfounded shortly after the Reuters story broke, and China has publicly claimed it maintains a neutral stance . But the EU’s position has been unambiguous—officials say the intelligence is conclusive and directly contradicts earlier Chinese assurances .

How diplomatic relations collapsed even before the training revelation

The training revelation did not start the deterioration; it accelerated an already steep decline. The EU’s goods trade deficit with China reached €359.9 billion in 2025, a 2.7% year‑on‑year increase that eclipsed the €312.2 billion deficit of 2024 . While that number remains below the record €397.3 billion deficit of 2022, European officials increasingly frame the imbalance as structurally unsustainable .

The symbolic rupture came in July 2025. A long‑planned EU‑China summit meant to mark 50 years of diplomatic relations was abruptly cut from two days to one at China’s request. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen emerged from the tense Beijing meeting to declare that trade relations had reached a “definite turning point” . The backdrop was China’s newly imposed rare‑earth export restrictions, which European leaders saw as a deliberate squeeze .

In early 2026, a planned diplomatic reset collapsed entirely. Euronews later described the EU’s posture as a “do no harm” phase—cautious, defensive engagement after Beijing’s rare‑earth blackmail shattered any remaining goodwill . Internally, the Commission convened most of its commissioners for a formal orientation debate to address trade dynamics it now publicly labels as “not sustainable” .

A coalition of five member states—Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, France, and Lithuania—has since pushed for stricter policies targeting Chinese industrial overcapacity . The Commission’s own readout after the orientation debate says China remains “a critical partner,” but insists the current trade relationship cannot continue in its current form .

The rare‑earth weapon and the EU’s supply‑chain countermeasures

China’s dominance over rare earths—the 17 elements essential for everything from EV motors to missile‑guidance systems—has long been a vulnerability for Europe. The EU depends on China for more than 90% of its rare‑earth supply . That dependency became a weapon in 2025.

On 4 April 2025, China imposed export licensing requirements on seven heavy rare earths—samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium—as well as permanent magnets made from them . A second, more aggressive wave followed on 9 October 2025, adding five more elements and introducing a foreign direct product rule modeled on U.S. restrictions. That rule requires a Chinese license even for foreign‑made products containing as little as 0.1% Chinese‑origin rare earths .

Brussels responded across three policy fronts:

• ReSourceEU (December 2025). The European Commission unveiled a €3 billion (~$3.5 billion) strategy designed to build domestic processing capacity, establish strategic stockpiles, and develop recycling infrastructure for critical raw materials. The plan, part of the broader economic‑security strategy, also proposes a new European Critical Raw Materials Centre to coordinate mineral supplies and joint member‑state investments .
• Export restrictions on waste (early 2026). The EU classified rare‑earth magnet waste and battery “black mass” as hazardous materials, banning their export to non-OECD countries. The goal is to keep recyclable rare‑earth feedstocks inside Europe .
• Critical Raw Materials Act framework. New rules set licensing requirements for exporting recyclable rare‑earth materials and establish binding targets for domestic extraction, processing, and recycling of critical minerals .

The European Parliament has kept consistent pressure on the Commission. A July 2025 resolution called for accelerated CRMA implementation, joint EU mining and refining projects, and development of strategic stockpiles . Meanwhile, the European Central Bank warned that Chinese restrictions risk causing “supply‑driven output losses and higher inflation” in the euro area .

Where the relationship stands now

By mid-2026, EU‑China relations are no longer defined by any single dispute. The covert training program has moved the confrontation onto defense and intelligence terrain; the trade deficit has made the economic relationship politically radioactive inside the bloc; the rare‑earth restrictions have forced Brussels to treat supply‑chain sovereignty as an existential project.

China’s position remains that the training reports are false, its export controls are legitimate national‑security measures, and EU trade complaints are politically motivated. The EU’s position is that all three crises are symptoms of the same problem: a relationship built on dependencies that Beijing is willing to weaponize. The ReSourceEU strategy, the Critical Raw Materials Act, and the growing political consensus for a harder line on trade all reflect a bloc that has stopped hoping for a reset and started building leverage instead.