«We strongly urge the U. S. to immediately correct the mistakes and withdraw the so-called sanctions.»
Withdraw the sanctions or «bear the consequences.»
That was the unnervingly vague ultimatum that China leveled at the Trump administration Friday, after Beijing was punished for buying Russian arms.
Since December, Russia has delivered 10 Sukhoi Su-35 combat aircraft to China as well as equipment related to Moscow’s feared S-400, a state-of-the-art missile defense system.
From a U. S. perspective, the problem was that Beijing bought these components from Russia’s state arms export agency, which was already on a U. S. blacklist.
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After months of deliberation, the U. S. on Thursday announced sanctions against the Chinese military agency that made the purchases, as well as its director.
Beijing’s angry response came hours later.
The U. S. sanctions have «seriously violated the basic norms of international relations and seriously damaged the relations between China and the United States,» Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters on Friday. «We strongly urge the U. S. to immediately correct the mistakes and withdraw the so-called sanctions, otherwise the U. S. must bear the consequences.»
It did not specify what these consequences might be.
On the surface this might seem like a simple tit-for-tat exchange between two world powers that have increasingly locked horns in recent months. The reality is more complicated.
Despite China being named in the measures, «the ultimate target of these sanctions is Russia,» a senior Trump administration official said Thursday.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the sanctions were «not intended to take down the economy of third-party countries» such as China.
