U.S. to China: Do not aid Russia in Ukraine war

Top U.S. officials on Sunday warned China against helping Russia in its brutal invasion of Ukraine, a senator saying that doing so would be “dumber than dirt.”

The admonitions came after Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Chinese counterpart for the first time since the U.S. downed a suspected Chinese spying balloon that had flown across the country.

China’s top Foreign Minister Wang Yi gave “no apology” for the incursion, Blinken said Sunday, a day after they met on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

“What I can also tell you is this was an opportunity to speak very clearly and very directly about the fact that China sent a surveillance balloon over our territory, violating our sovereignty, violating international law,” the secretary of state said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“And I told him quite simply that that was unacceptable and can never happen again,” he said.

Earlier this month, U.S. fighter jets downed the balloon off the coast of South Carolina, though Beijing denied it had been used for spying.

Days later, the U.S. blasted several more objects out of the sky, officials later saying we may never know what those were.

Blinken said Sunday that “China’s considering providing lethal support to Russia in its aggression against Ukraine.

“It would have serious consequences in our own relationship, something that we do not need on top of the balloon incident ,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was much less diplomatic.

“If you jump on the Putin train now, you’re dumber than dirt,” he said on ABC’s “This Week,” referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“It would be like buying a ticket on the Titanic after you saw the movie,” Graham continued. “Don’t do this. The most catastrophic thing that could happen to U.S.-China relationship, in my opinion, is for China to … start to give lethal weapons to Putin in this crime against humanity.”