On Monday, Wang called for a negotiated settlement to the Ukraine war during a stopover in Hungary.
The same day, US President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv in a show of solidarity, promising US$500 million worth of military aid to Ukraine and additional sanctions against Russian elites to be unveiled in full this week.
Beijing has refrained from condemning Moscow’s operation against Ukraine or calling it an “invasion” in line with the Kremlin, which describes the war as a “special military operation” designed to protect Russia’s own security.
Russia’s Feb 24 invasion of Ukraine has triggered one of the deadliest European conflicts since World War Two and the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
“LETHAL WEAPONS”
The United States casts China and Russia as the two biggest nation-state threats to its security. Xi has stood by Russian President Vladimir Putin, resisting Western pressure to isolate Moscow
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned on Saturday that the United States was very concerned China is considering providing “lethal assistance” to Russia, which he told Wang “would have serious consequences in our relationship.”
“There are various kinds of lethal assistance that they are at least contemplating providing, to include weapons,” Blinken said in an interview with NBC News, adding that Washington would soon release more details.
The European Union’s top foreign affairs official Josep Borrell on Monday warned against China sending arms to Russia, saying it would be a “red line”.
Any Chinese weapons supplies to Russia would risk a potential escalation of the Ukraine war into a confrontation between Russia and China on the one side and Ukraine and the US-led NATO military alliance on the other.
Beijing has repeatedly accused Washington of escalating the conflict by supplying weapons to Ukraine.