One official said Chinese materials were filing critical gaps in Russia’s defence production cycle and helping Moscow undertake its “most ambitious defence expansion since the Soviet era and on a faster timeline than we believed possible early on in this conflict”.
“Our view is that one of the most game-changing moves available to us at this time to support Ukraine is to persuade the PRC[China] to stop helping Russia reconstitute its military industrial base. Russia would struggle to sustain its war effort without PRC input,” the official said.
Some of the information provided by the American officials in a small briefing with reporters on Saturday (AEST) was based on declassified intelligence. They sketched a wide array of ways China is helping Russia’s two-year war against Ukraine without providing lethal assistance.
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A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the US said it has not provided weaponry to any party,adding that it was “not a producer of or party involved in the Ukraine crisis” and that normal trade between China and Russia should not be interfered or restricted.
“We urge the US side to refrain from disparaging and scapegoating the normal relationship between China and Russia,” Liu Pengyu said.
Biden has been pressuring Republicans who control the House of Representatives to approve a major infusion of funding for providing weapons to Ukraine as it struggles to fend off the Russians.