MOSCOW, April 19. /TASS/. China has never supplied weapons to Russia or Ukraine, but Beijing does not countenance blackmail and will not bow to orders issued by the US on the matter, Liu Xiaoming, Special Representative of the Chinese Government on Korean Peninsula Affairs, said in an interview with TASS.
"I would like to reiterate that China is neither the instigator of nor a party to the Ukrainian crisis and it has never supplied weapons to either of the parties to the Ukrainian conflict," he pointed out.
The envoy also noted that the US had no right to issue orders to Beijing on arms supplies. "We won’t accept any kind of ‘helpful hints’ or [outright] blackmail from the United States," Liu added, commenting in particular on Western media reports about Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu’s trip to Russia.
Earlier, US Permanent Representative to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in an interview with CNN that the United States had warned China about the consequences of making any potential supplies of lethal weapons to Russia for use in the conflict in Ukraine. According to her, that would constitute a red line.
Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu is on a visit to Moscow on April 16-19. On Sunday, he was received by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who pointed out that Russian-Chinese military cooperation served to boost trust-based strategic relations between the two countries. The Russian leader also highlighted the multifaceted ties between the two militaries.