National Security Adviser to President Joe Biden Jake Sullivan said on Sunday that the Chinese government was aware of Vladimir Putin’s plans to attack Ukraine.
He also threatened Beijing with “serious consequences” if Chinese President Xi Jinping tries to circumvent a vast economic blockade imposed by the West on Russia that has led to its authoritarian leader’s unprovoked invasion of the neighboring country.
The startling accusation comes just a day before Sullivan is scheduled to meet with Chinese officials in Rome to discuss the attack on Ukraine as well as the economic “competition” between the world’s two superpowers.
“We believe that before the invasion, China was indeed aware that Putin was up to something,” Sullivan said on CNN’s State of the Union program.
He added that Beijing “may not have understood all this, because it is quite possible that Putin lied to them just as he lied to the Europeans and others.”
Sullivan warned that the United States was “watching closely” to make sure that China was “actually providing any support, material support or economic support to Russia.”
“This is our concern, and we have informed Beijing that we will not stand by and allow any country to compensate Russia for its losses,” he said.
“We are telling Beijing directly, privately, that a large-scale effort to evade sanctions or support Russia to compensate will have consequences.”
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned of “grave consequences” for any country that evades Western sanctions against Russia.
Such actions by any country will be negatively perceived by the United States, the foreign policy expert added.
“We will not allow this to continue, and we will allow Russia to be a lifeline from these economic sanctions from any country in the world,” Sullivan promised.
He indicated that such talks would be part of his meeting on Monday with Chinese officials.
“As for specific ways to do this, again, I’m not going to state all this publicly, but we will communicate this to China privately, as we have already done and will continue to do,” Sullivan said. during a separate interview with NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday.
The National Security Council said shortly after Sullivan’s interview that he and other U.S. officials would travel to Rome “as part of our ongoing efforts to keep lines of communication open between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC).”
He will meet with Director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission Yang Jiechi.
“The parties will discuss ongoing efforts to manage competition between our two countries and discuss the impact of Russia’s war against Ukraine on regional and global security,” National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne said in a statement.
Russia said it was counting on China to help it withstand the blow to its economy from Western sanctions, which it said had frozen nearly half of its gold reserves, Reuters reported on Sunday.
However, on Thursday, a spokesman for the capital’s aviation authority said Xi officials refused to sell parts to Russian airlines because that sector of their economy is also under sanctions.
On Sunday, Putin officials reportedly asked Xi to help Russia weather the hit of Western sanctions.
CIA Director William Burns testified in a Senate hearing late last week that Xi was “alarmed” by Putin’s intrusion.
Beijing has been pleading with Moscow to delay a potential invasion until after this year’s Winter Olympics, according to Western intelligence reports.
Sullivan had previously predicted that China would be dragged into Putin’s illegal and destructive war before it even broke out. Moscow troops have been shelling Ukrainian cities for more than two weeks. Kiev officials have said more civilians have died in the conflict so far than its soldiers.
“We believe that Beijing will eventually bear some of the costs associated with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and that it should calculate this, given its obligations to the Russian government,” a senior national security official said in an interview with NBC’s Meet program. February 6. Press.
The Chinese abstained from a UN vote condemning Russia and criticized economic sanctions against Moscow. He expressed support for peace talks and offered his services as a mediator despite questions about his neutrality and meager experience in mediating international conflicts.
The Asian superpower has also recently added fuel to Russian accusations that the US is building and operating bioweapons labs in Ukraine.
The CIA director told U.S. senators at a hearing last week that Xi was “alarmed” by Putin’s brutal attack (pictured: evacuees take a max-shift route to cross a river near a destroyed bridge as they flee the town of Irpin, northwest of from Kyiv). , March 13)
Moscow troops have been shelling Ukrainian soldiers and civilians for more than two weeks since Putin ordered the invasion on Feb. 24.
Humanitarian corridors have repeatedly been opened to allow civilians to escape bloodshed, although they have been stopped every time Russian troops violated the ceasefire.
United Nations authorities have seen no evidence to support this claim, which has been vehemently denied by the US. American officials warned that the allegations were most likely not genuine, but a worrying pretext for Putin to launch a bioweapon attack on Ukraine.
Chinese officials said Washington has no right to complain about Russia’s actions because the US invaded Iraq under false pretenses. The US claimed to have evidence that Saddam Hussein stockpiled weapons of mass destruction, though nothing has ever been found.
For Russia, China could be a critical economic partner in easing tough sanctions imposed by the US, the UK, the 27 countries of the European Union and others, though there are questions about how far Beijing will go to alienate the alliance and endanger its own economy. risky.
The Biden administration wants to convince China that any attempt to ease sanctions on Russia could have repercussions for its relations with the US and Western allies.
Sullivan and Yang last met for face-to-face talks in Switzerland, where Sullivan expressed the Biden administration’s concerns about China’s military provocations against Taiwan, human rights abuses against ethnic minorities, and efforts to crack down on pro-democracy supporters in Hong Kong.
The meeting set the stage for a three-hour virtual meeting in November between Biden and Xi.
Sullivan is also scheduled to meet with Luigi Mattiolo, diplomatic adviser to Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, while in Rome.