China is responding to U.S. warnings for it to not send lethal aid to Russia amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, blaming the U.S. for doing what it suggests China might be weighing to do.
China denounced the U.S. claims as "disinformation" and blame shifting.
"It is the United States, not China, that is continually sending weapons to the battlefield," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Monday, accusing the U.S. of "shifting blame and spreading disinformation," Newsweek reported.
U.S. intelligence suggests China is considering providing arms and ammunition to Russia, an involvement in the Kremlin's war effort that would be a "serious problem," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday.
Blinken said the United States long has been concerned China would provide weapons to Russia. He pointed to Chinese leader Xi Jinping's promise to Russian President Vladimir Putin of a partnership with "no limits" when they met just weeks before Putin sent his troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Since then, ties between the two countries have only grown stronger.
"We've been watching this very, very closely — and, for the most part, China has been engaged in providing rhetorical, political, diplomatic support to Russia, but we have information that gives us concern that they are considering providing lethal support to Russia in the war against Ukraine," Blinken said Sunday, a day after his meeting at a security conference in Munich with Wang Yi, the Chinese Communist Party's most senior foreign policy official.
"It was important for me to share very clearly with Wang Yi that this would be a serious problem," Blinken said.
Wang is to visit Russia this week on the one-year anniversary of its invasion of Ukraine, and he called Monday for negotiations and peace for the sake of the world and Europe in particular.
"We would like a political solution to provide a peaceful and sustainable framework to Europe," Wang said ahead of a visit to Moscow during a stop in Hungary, which could result in billions of euros of new Chinese investment in the country.
China regards Russia as an ally, counter-balancing U.S. global power, and has so far refrained from condemning the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine while repeatedly urging peace.
Information from Reuters and The Associated Press was used in this report.