U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo warned China about the consequences of supporting in a speech in Berlin on May 31.
China has denied giving Russia military assistance in its full-scale against Ukraine. At the same time, the U.S. has previously accused China of giving Russia "every support behind the scenes" towards its war in Ukraine, describing its actions as "destabilizing in the heart of Europe."
Adeyemo, who just visited Kyiv two days prior, said that China must decide between maintaining economic ties to the West and an alliance with Russia.
"We must make the choice stark for China: Chinese firms can either do business in our economies or they can equip Russia's war machine with dual-use goods. They cannot do both," Adeyemo said.
The secretary said that the partnership "may seem like a distant threat" to the West but that "we should not be blind to the fact that a growing Russian military with material support from Chinese companies will only grow in ambition."
At the same time, Adeyemo acknowledged that the U.S. goal is "not to shut down all bilateral trade between Russia and China."
"Our goal is to convince China to stop sending Russia a set of dual-use goods that are actively being used to prosecute a war Beijing has told us they want to see end."
The failure to do so could result in Russia posing a greater threat to the West, he added.
Adeyemo said that the U.S. would be prepared to use sanctions and export controls against China and Chinese companies to prevent the trade of dual-use technologies but conceded that China is not "sending tanks or missiles to Russia."
U.K. Foreign Secretary Grant Shapps said earlier in May that he was declassifying new intelligence to reveal the "quite significant" development that the U.K. and U.S. had reports that "lethal aid is now, or will be, flowing from China to Russia and into Ukraine."
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan subsequently distanced himself from Shapps' assertion, saying that the U.S. had seen no evidence of it either in the past or "to date."
Chris York
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