China is 'certainly in no hurry' to provide lethal weapons to Russia, says assistant professor

Well, I think China is playing the long game. It is certainly in no hurry to assist Russia and certainly in providing lethal weapons because that would fundamentally, as we have seen earlier, cause a lot of problems with its relationships, not just with the United States but certainly in Europe, where it's trying to cultivate closer relationships with countries over there. But at the same time, I think it does want to sort of, any defeat for Russia is going to reflect badly on China. So China is going to play it very carefully. I think explicitly, it's quite clear it would not say that it will send lethal weapons, but we certainly know there are many ways in which it could provide aid and whether it reaches a threshold of what we know as lethal weapons, I think that's really something we should look out for. Okay, so before we get to what kind of lethal weapons we should be watching out for, obviously they couldn't include drones more immediately. Russia probably needs ammunition, including artillery shells.

Let's talk about the process. I mean, this is way simplifying it, but I think we're all agreed that China is not going to officially and explicitly send arms to help Russia in its war in Ukraine. But this whole indirect route, right, it could be as simple as going, hey, listen, I sold at the Joe. Joe's the one that sold at the Vladimir. I didn't know anything about it. That would be more than easy. Well, I think the biggest support that we're seeing China providing Russia right now is really moral support.

So material support, it's one thing. We may see channels in which China demonstrates that kind of material support. But I think the biggest provision of support that the Chinese are providing Moscow is really moral support. And in the sense who said, well, look who's the problem here. It's a United States supplying weapons to Ukraine and to sort of cast this war in a sort of the United States as being the one instigating and supplying the ammunition with which Ukraine is able to utilize to continue waging war with Russia. So it's a very interesting situation. China is almost reversing the logic of this war and to say that it is the West that is the one that is causing this war to be prolonged.

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