The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said on Sunday that he had evidence that China plans to send weapons to Russia for its war against Ukraine and warned of the consequences that this could have for bilateral relations.
“In China there is really no distinction between private companies and the state. So far we have seen that they provide non-lethal support to Russia for use in Ukraine. Our concern now is that they are considering providing lethal support, based on the information we have,” he said.
On CBS, Blinken clarified that by lethal support he meant weapons and ammunition, but mainly weapons.
In a meeting that Blinken held on Saturday with the director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Wang Yi, in the framework of the Munich conference, the US representative warned his interlocutor precisely against the supply of aid material to Russia. “We have made it very clear to them that [the delivery of lethal support] would pose a serious problem for us and for our relationship,” he added to CBS.
Americans have been watching China's behavior regarding the war in Ukraine since Chinese leader Xi Jinping's first meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin after the invasion. The delivery of arms to Russia would seriously strain diplomatic relations between the Asian giant and the US, still tense after the issue of the shooting down of the Chinese balloon inside US airspace.
