US and china relations yet again under stress with the US’s most recent warning against aiding Russian forces. Based on an article by NBC News US intelligence recently has found reason to believe that China will soon be arming Russia and its forces. Although, in the same article it is stated that the information that led the US to come to this conclusion hasn’t been revealed. What ever it is, it has to be quite alarming to send a direct warning to China.

According to an article on Fox News it is revealed that China seems to be very upset about the statements from the US.  China’s Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin has stated “The U.S. is in no position to tell China what to do. We would never stand for finger-pointing, or even coercion and pressurizing from the U.S. on our relations with Russia.” To add insult to injury, while not his official words, Wang has stated that China is the one looking for peace rather than the US due to the fact that the US is aiding and supplying weapons to Ukraine.

In an article on CNN it is reported that China’s choice hasn’t been made yet due to ongoing negotiations to determine the scope and cost of the equipment that would be sent. Apparently Russia had been requesting supplies for a while now, in the same CNN article it is said that “Since invading Ukraine, Russia has repeatedly requested drones and ammunition from China,” this only goes to show how long China has been in contact with Russia.

On the other hand the U.S., while providing supplies will not be sending F-16 fighter jets. The reasoning being, as stated in the CNN article, “This phase of the war requires tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, artillery, tactical air defense systems, so that Ukrainian fighters can retake territory that Russia currently occupies,” Sullivan said. “F-16s are a question for a later time.” The US national Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has stated in an article from NBC News if China were to provide Russia with equipment “I think it would alienate them from a number of countries in the world, including our European allies, and it would put them for square into the center of responsibility for the kinds of war crimes and bombardments of civilians and atrocities that the Russians are committing in Ukraine,” Sullivan said, he also said that “their weapons would in effect be used for the slaughter of people in Ukraine.”

In an article from BBC News it has been reported that Sullivan stated that the US believed that China knew that Vladimir Putin had been planning something, they were unaware of the lengths they would go, I’d hope that they’d choose a different course of action had they known. Sullivan has also said that they could have been lied to by Putin, his exact words being “Because it’s very possible that [Mr] Putin lied to them the same way that he lied to Europeans and others.” If it is true that Putin had lied to China and they were unaware of the actions Russia would eventually take what could have happened if they did know, how would these events differ?