US warns China: No country will 'get away with' aiding Russia
While the State Department has declined to confirm reports that Russia has reached out to China for aid, State Department spokesman Ned Price is warning China that the U.S. is watching for any country that may come to Russia's defense.
The U.S. delegation "raised directly and very clearly our concerns about the PRC's [People's Republic of China's] support for Russia in the wake of the invasion and the implications that any such support would have for the PRC's relationship not only with us, but for its relationships around the world," Price said.
The U.S. is "watching very closely the extent to which the PRC or any other country for that matter provides any form of support -- whether that's material support, whether that's economic support, whether that's financial support for Russia," he added.
He declined to say whether the U.S. and its allies are drawing up sanctions in case China provides strong support to Russia in violation of Western sanctions.
But he said, "Any country that would seek to, attempt to bail Russia out of this economic, financial morass will be met with consequences. We will ensure that no country is able to get away with such a thing."
During a United Nations Security Council briefing Monday, China appeared to align itself more closely with the Kremlin.
“The final solution to the crisis in Ukraine is to take seriously and respect the reasonable security concerns of all states,” said Zhang Jun, China's U.N. representative, repeating China’s assertion that Russia is reacting to legitimate threats to national security posed by Ukraine.
He continued, “The Cold War was over long ago. Cold War mentality based on bloc confrontation should be completely rejected. Sticking to hegemony mentality and provoking bloc confrontation will only bring the world disasters and exacerbate turmoil and division."
He also slammed the use of sanctions by the U.S. and it allies, arguing that these economic punishments would not solve the conflict, but create more international strife.
-ABC News' Conor Finnegan and Shannon Crawford