China is likely to supply arms to Russia, CIA chief William Burns says. According to American media, these are kamikaze drones and semiconductors – a kind of computer chips that can be used in rockets, for example.
Not only the CIA reports that China is considering selling weapons to Russia. ‘The news also comes from several European places,’ says BNR’s foreign commentator Bernard Hammelburg. ‘The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Foreign Affairs Commissioner Josep Borrell of the European Union, for example, also report it. Then of course the question is whether they all have the same source, but I hope that is not the case.’
“We have to take Burns very seriously.”
Debatable whether chips are weapons
There is no question that kamikaze drones are weapons. But according to Hammelburg it is debatable whether this also applies to the chips. “I think the West will see them as weapons, because without them Russia’s actual weapons wouldn’t work.”
So much is still unclear about possible Chinese arms deliveries, but: ‘We have to take Burns very seriously,’ Hammelburg adds. ‘He’s a man with a huge background and a lot of experience, so he knows what he’s talking about.’
Also read | ‘Serious consequences for China’
