The United States warned that China would cross a “red line” if it decided to supply lethal military support to Russia, including weapons and ammunition, to help in its war against Ukraine.
“We welcome the Chinese announcement that they want peace because that’s what we always want to pursue in situations like this. But we also have to be clear that if there are any thoughts and efforts by the Chinese and others to provide lethal support to the Russians in their brutal attack against Ukraine, that is unacceptable,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
They also come after reports recently surfaced that Chinese companies have been providing surveillance equipment to Russia’s Wagner Group fighting in Ukraine.
China Won’t Accept ‘Finger Pointing’
He went on to note that President Joe Biden had held talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping within the early days of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine during which Biden had shared the U.S. government’s “deep concerns about the possibility that China would provide lethal support to Russia in this effort as well as engage in the systematic evasion of sanctions.”“We’ve been watching this very closely,” Blinken said. “To date, we have seen Chinese companies—and of course, in China, there’s really no distinction between private companies and the state—we have seen them provide non-lethal support to Russia for use in Ukraine.”
“The concern that we have now is, based on the information that we have, that they are considering providing lethal support, and we’ve made very clear to them that that would cause a serious problem for us and in our relationship,” he added, without providing further details as to exactly what information the government has obtained.
Blinke clarified that “lethal support” is determined primarily as weapons.
“There’s a whole gamut of things that—that fit in that category, everything from ammunition to the weapons themselves,” he said.
Kremlin Says NATO Is ‘Hostile’
“The U.S., as a major country, has every reason to work for a political settlement of the crisis instead of fanning the flames or profiting from it,” China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, said, according to the statement.“Wang Yi stressed that on the Ukraine issue, China stands by principles. China is committed to promoting peace talks and has played a constructive role. The China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination is built on the basis of non-alliance, non-confrontation, and non-targeting of third countries, which is within the sovereign right of any two independent states,” the statement added.
Blinken’s comments came shortly after he met with Wang Yi at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.