‘We are now in a stage where we are making clear that this should not happen, and I’m relatively optimistic that we will be successful’
In an interview aired Sunday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said there would be “consequences” if China sent weapons to Russia for use in its invasion of Ukraine, but noted his optimism that Beijing would refrain from doing so.
The CNN News interview aired two days after Scholz met with U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington. Recently, U.S. officials have warned that China was considering to begin providing arms and ammunition to Moscow, and ahead of his trip, Scholz called on Beijing to instead use its influence to press for Russian withdrawal from Ukraine.
Asked if sanctioning China was a possibility if it did send arms to Russia, Scholz replied: “It would have consequences, but we are now in a stage where we are making clear that this should not happen, and I’m relatively optimistic that we will be successful with our request, but we will have… to be very, very cautious.”
He didn’t elaborate on the nature of the consequences. Germany is Europe’s biggest economy, and China has been its most significant trading partner in recent years.
On Sunday, after his Cabinet met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Scholz was asked whether he had concrete evidence from the United States that China would potentially deliver weapons to Russia and whether he would back sanctions against Beijing if it did so.
“We all agree that there must be no weapons deliveries, and the Chinese government has stated that it wouldn’t deliver any,” he replied, AP News reported.
Von der Leyen said, “We have no evidence for this so far, but we must observe it every day.”
Whether the European Union would sanction China “is a hypothetical question that can only be answered if it were to become reality and fact,” she added.
