The US has told allies that China signalled its willingness to provide military assistance to Russia to support its invasion of Ukraine, according to officials familiar with American diplomatic cables on the exchange.
The cables, which were sent by the US state department to allies in Europe and Asia, did not say whether China had signalled that it would help Russia in the future or if it had already started providing military support. Nor did they say at which point in the conflict Beijing appeared open to offering the help.
The Financial Times reported on Sunday that Russia had made the request for assistance at some point after the start of the now three-week invasion.
The Russian request and Chinese response have sounded alarm bells in the White House. US officials believe China is trying to help Russia while its top officials publicly call for a diplomatic solution to the war.
The Chinese embassy in the US on Sunday said it had no knowledge of any Russian request or positive Chinese response to Moscow. Russia on Monday also denied making any request to China.
A senior US defence official declined to say if China had provided military support after the Russian request, but said the Pentagon was watching the situation “very, very closely”.
“If China does choose to materially support Russia in this war, there will likely be consequences for China,” the defence official said.
The official added: “We have seen China basically give tacit approval to what Russia is doing by refusing to join sanctions, by blaming the west and the United States for assistance that we’re giving Ukraine [and] by claiming they wanted to see a peaceful outcome but essentially doing nothing to achieve it.”
Jake Sullivan, US national security adviser, is expected to raise the issue in Rome today in a meeting with Yang Jiechi, China’s top foreign policy official. Before departing Washington on Sunday, Sullivan said he would warn the Chinese not to attempt to “bail out” Russia, including helping it survive the tough sanctions from the west.
“We will ensure that neither China, nor anyone else, can compensate Russia for these losses,” Sullivan told NBC television on Sunday. “In terms of the specific means of doing that, again, I’m not going to lay all of that out in public, but we will communicate that privately to China.”
Ahead of the meeting between Sullivan and Yang, the Biden administration last week asked European allies to amplify their message to China that Beijing should not help Russia circumvent sanctions, according to one European official.
China has portrayed itself as a neutral actor despite its increasingly close ties to Moscow. But Chinese media and diplomats have offered support for Russia’s justification for the invasion and blamed the US and Nato for the conflict.
Chinese media have also repeated unsubstantiated Russian claims that the US helped Ukraine build biological weapons labs.
Beijing and Moscow have grown closer in recent years, largely due to their shared disdain for the US and western military alliances such as Nato. Last month, Chinese president Xi Jinping and Russian president Vladimir Putin signed a joint statement in Beijing that described their increasingly close partnership as having “no limits”.
Evan Medeiros, a China expert at Georgetown University and former top White House Asia advisor, said it would be “deeply worrisome” if China transferred weapons to Russia.
“It would be a game changer for global geopolitics,” Medeiros said. “We risk going back to the days of the Sino-Soviet alliance of the 1950s. Ukraine may become the first proxy conflict in a new Cold War.”
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2022-03-14 16:37:58Z
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