China is demanding the US cancel economic sanctions imposed against a Chinese military agency and its leader over a Russian weapons purchase.

"We strongly urge the US to immediately correct the mistakes and revoke the so-called sanctions; otherwise the US must bear the consequences," warned Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang.

This is over China's Equipment Development Department (EDD) purchasing ten Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and several S-400 missiles and related equipment.  The US maintains it violates a 2017 law that was intended to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin's government for interfering in the 2016 US elections.  But China hasn't participated in US sanctions against Russia since 2014.

Russia's trade minister Denis Manturov suspects jealousy instead, claiming the sanctions are "chiefly due to the fact that we produce large volumes of competitive products".

The US will freeze any assets that EDD chief Li Shangfu has in America and is blocking Americans from doing business with him or his agency.

These sanctions are outside the trade war in which the US and China have put levies on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of each others imports.