McMaster: We’re going to see more evidence of China supporting Russia in Ukraine war

Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster predicted in an interview on Sunday that more evidence of China assisting Russia in its invasion in Ukraine will be revealed in the coming days and weeks.

“I think what you’re going to see in the coming days and weeks is more and more evidence of Chinese support,” he told CBS’s Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation.”

“China doesn’t want to get caught doing this, right, because at the same time, as they’re helping the Russians murder Ukrainians, they’re also saying, ‘Hey, China is open for business,’ ” he said. “And they’re trying to appeal to American and other investors to continue to prop up their status mercantilist model, even as they commit genocide.”

McMaster, a longtime Army general, served as national security adviser under former President Trump. Trump’s last secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, determined in his final day in office that China’s communist government was committing crimes against humanity against the ethnic Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region.

U.S. officials said last month that China has provided nonlethal aid to Russia, and was considering sending lethal aid to the country to help in its war against Ukraine. The Pentagon warned that China will face “consequences” if it sends the lethal aid to Russia.

The warnings over Ukraine come as the U.S. says China intends in the coming years to assert control over independent Taiwan, potentially through military force.

China has denied any plans to arm Russia’s war in Ukraine, or claims of genocide in Xinjiang. Beijing considers Taiwan part of China, however, the island has long governed itself.

McMaster said that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speeches to the People’s Congress last week was “essentially preparing the Chinese people for war.”

Xi told the Congress, upon securing his third term in power, that the communist party must build China’s army “into a great wall of steel that effectively safeguards national sovereignty, security, and development interests.”

McMaster added that the United States has given China “coercive power” over America’s economy, and that it was time to rethink those economic ties.

“And so I think it’s time for us really to assess the degree to which we have been over many years underwriting in many ways, our own demise, with investments in China and really not doing more to shore-up, shore-up fragile supply chains, we’ve essentially given an authoritarian regime coercive power over our economy,” he said.