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Sino-US ties: The guessing game over weapons for Russia

Washington is using its Ukraine war intelligence playbook on China in warning Beijing against going to Moscow’s aid with arms. Question is, will it work as intended?

China supplying weapons to Russia would produce a fundamental break in US-China relations and set the two nations on a dangerous collision course.

Chinese President Xi Jinping meeting his US counterpart Joe Biden on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Bali on Nov 14, 2022.

PHOTO: REUTERS

Jonathan Eyal

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“We actually don’t know.” That’s how United States National Security Council spokesman John Kirby responded late last week in answer to a question about what information Washington possesses about the likelihood that China is about to get involved in the Ukraine war by sending weapons to Russia.

For a US administration that spent quite some time warning about the supposedly grave

dangers of Chinese supplies of weapons to Russia,

the admission that Washington actually knows very little on this score seems odd; if you know little, you are well advised to keep quiet.

Sino-US ties: The guessing game over weapons for Russia

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