Sullivan: It would be a ‘real mistake’ for China to provide weapons to Russia

National security adviser Jake Sullivan sent a warning to China as it reportedly considers providing Russia with lethal aid in the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine, saying on Sunday that sending such material would be a “real mistake.”

“We are sending a clear message, as are our European allies, that this would be a real mistake because those weapons would be used to bombard cities and kill civilians, and China should want no part of that,” Sullivan said on ABC’s “This Week.”

China is considering supplying Russia, which has grown closer to the Asian country, to aid in the war Moscow started against Ukraine, according to U.S. intelligence. It is a step that China has yet to take, officials say.

Biden administration officials have been vague about what actions would be taken if China were to provide lethal aid to Russia. Sullivan reiterated on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the U.S. is laying out those consequences in private with Chinese officials.

“We’re not just making direct threats,” Sullivan said. “We’re just laying out both the stakes and the consequences, how things would unfold … And we are doing that clearly and specifically behind closed doors.”

CIA Director William Burns, meanwhile, said that if China were to provide arms and machinery to Russia, it would only serve to prolong a war that has dragged on for a year already.

“Obviously more ammunitions to the aggressor in this conflict to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, wherever it comes from, and we also have evidence that the Iranians are providing, you know, lethal equipment and munitions, that the North Koreans are doing the same thing as well,” Burns told CBS’s “Face The Nation.” “So wherever that lethal assistance comes from, it prolongs a vicious war of aggression.”

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