WASHINGTON, February 26. /TASS/. The US is confident that China is considering supplies of weapons to Russia, US Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns said in an interview with the CBS, parts of which were aired on Saturday.
"We're confident that the Chinese leadership is considering the provision of lethal equipment," Burns said. "We also don't see that a final decision has been made yet, and we don't see evidence of actual shipments of lethal equipment."
The US leadership thought it was "important to make very clear what the consequences of that would be."
The television channel’s host asked the official if the administration's goal is to deter China from going ahead with the supplies by sharing the CIA's intelligence. Burns responded in the affirmative, saying such decision by China "would be a very risky and unwise bet."
He said the Chinese are trying to estimate "where's the point at which, you know, they would run into some pretty serious consequences."
Burns said Chinese President Xi Jinping was probably watching the Russian special operation in Ukraine very closely.
"I think we need to take very seriously Xi's ambitions with regard to ultimately controlling Taiwan. That doesn't, however, in our view, mean that a military conflict is inevitable," Burns said. "I think our judgment at least is that President Xi and his military leadership have doubts today about whether they could accomplish that invasion.".