Ukraine war: Xi Jinping ‘is unsettled’ by invasion, CIA director says
- US spy chief William Burns says Xi’s own intelligence community ‘doesn’t appear to have told him what was going to happen’
- US officials admit that, despite predicting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion plans, they had underestimated Ukraine’s ability to defend itself
China overestimated Russia’s ability to achieve a decisive victory over Ukraine, Moscow overestimated Beijing’s support and the US overestimated Russian military prowess, top US intelligence chiefs told senators on Thursday as they assessed the unfolding crisis.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion has undercut President Xi Jinping’s goals by knocking global growth even as China’s economy wobbles, they added. And by driving Western allies closer together, Moscow has undercut Beijing’s ability to play one off against the other and damaged China’s reputation by its association with Russia.
“President Xi, in particular, is unsettled by what he’s seen, partly because his own intelligence doesn’t appear to have told him what was going to happen,” William Burns, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
“I don’t think they anticipated that the Russian military was going to prove largely ineffective so far. I don’t think they anticipated that the West would react with such resolve.”
Intelligence officials also said it appeared that Putin misjudged how much support he could count on from China.