At high-level talks this week, the US had a clear warning for China: Don’t come to Russia’s aid in its invasion of Ukraine.
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who met for seven hours with top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi in Rome on Monday, “raised directly and very clearly our concerns” about China’s support for Russia since the invasion and the implications it could have for Beijing’s relationships around the world, State Department spokesman Ned Price said Monday.
Even as Russian troops converged on Ukraine, China was most likely unaware that Putin planned to invade, said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington. But Beijing is not about to admit that, she said. The U.S.-China meeting in Rome followed a report by American officials that Russia has asked China for military equipment and other support as it faces mounting international sanctions. Officials speaking to NBC News declined to elaborate on what kind of equipment Russia requested, or how China responded.
One reason Beijing may have been caught off-guard by Russia’s actions, Sun said, is because they are incompatible with the way China views war. Beijing prefers extracting concessions through coercion over the use of force, she said, and with Ukraine menaced by tens of thousands of Russian troops along its borders, China didn’t expect Putin to invade “because they didn’t think he needed to.”
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