China has lashed out over “wishful thinking” from Western leaders after the Wagner Group’s mutiny against Russian President Vladimir Putin last weekend.

A 24-hour coup led by the mercenary group’s boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, ended ended with his anticlimactic pullback on Saturday and his unceremonious exile to Belarus.

Until now, China has positioned itself as a neutral peacemaker in the war, despite Xi Jinping’s natural affinity for his “dear friend” Putin.

The Wagner Group’s rebellion, though, appears to have shown that the Chinese government is willing to side with Putin as he resists an unprecedented challenge to his absolute grip on power in Russia.

On Sunday, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a short statement on “the Wagner Group Incident” stating: “This is Russia’s internal affair. As Russia’s friendly neighbor and comprehensive strategic partner of coordination for the new era, China supports Russia in maintaining national stability and achieving development and prosperity.”

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Meanwhile, Ukraine and other governments in the West have claimed that the attempted rebellion is proof that Putin’s regime is cracking.

In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, Anthony Blinken said the Wagner Group’s mutiny “shows real cracks” in the Putin regime. Chinese state-controlled media has taken issue with this line of thinking.

On Saturday, the Global Times, a Chinese government-controlled outlet, wrote that the idea of Prigozhin’s revolt leading to a weakening of Putin’s authority is “wishful thinking.” The author, Chen Qingqing, quotes Chinese experts who state that the West is “hoping to instigate an anti-Russia sentiment which is…part of its cognitive warfare since the Ukraine crisis started.”

On China’s tightly censored and monitored social media site, Weibo, former Editor-in-Chief of the Global Times, Hu Xijin, criticized Western media coverage of the Wagner rebellion. He wrote that while Western media is showing some Russians on the streets who supported the Wagner Group’s insurrection, they have failed to show “some people blocking the military vehicles of the rebels.”

Also on Weibo, many Chinese netizens expressed support for the Putin regime as he quelled the rebellion. According to reporting from Insider, the hashtag “Putin accuses Wagner head of treason” received 2.37 billion views in just 24 hours.

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On Sunday, the Russian Embassy in China released a statement in Chinese saying they “appreciate” the principled position of their allies amidst this insurrection. The statement also warned the West against trying to exploit this situation for their own gain.

“We warn the West against any suggestion that it might exploit the domestic situation in Russia to further its anti-Russian goals. Such attempts are futile and will not resonate with sane political forces, either in Russia or abroad.

“We are confident that in the near future, the current situation will be resolved, and we will never fail to live up to the ancient wisdom of the Russian people and the Russian state,” the statement read.

China has abstained multiple times from votes at the United Nations condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine and Chinese President Xi Jinping traveled to Moscow to meet with Putin this past March.

However now, Beijing may be signaling there is at least some increased support for Russia as it struggles to get a grip on a potentially seismic event.

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