US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday blasted Beijing over its support of Russia after emerging from more than five hours of talks with Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅).
During a meeting on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in Indonesia, Blinken said he told Wang that China was not neutral on Russia’s war in Ukraine because there is no such thing as being neutral when there is a clear aggressor.
He cited Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) June 15 telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin as evidence of Beijing’s ongoing support.
Photo: REUTERS
Blinken said that G20 countries had urged Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov to lift a blockade on grain from Ukraine to ease food shortages around the world.
Blinken said he also conveyed to Wang that now was the time for China to call on Russia to end its blockade of Ukrainian ports and allow ships to export grain.
“Now what you hear from Beijing is that it claims to be neutral,” Blinken said. “I would start with the proposition that it’s pretty hard to be neutral when it comes to this aggression. There’s a clear aggressor. There’s a clear victim.”
China’s support for Russia was evident at the UN and in Chinese state media’s amplification of Russian propaganda, he said.
Blinken said he and Wang “addressed areas of disagreement, and ways to manage and reduce risks” while bringing up contentious issues such as tensions in the Taiwan Strait, Hong Kong’s democracy and allegations of forced labor in Xinjiang.
Blinken also pushed back against the idea that Wang’s two-week trip through the region suggested that China was more committed to engagement with Southeast Asia.
“What we’re about is not asking countries to choose, but giving them a choice when it comes to things like investment in infrastructure,” he said, adding that the US wanted to engage in a “race to the top,” not the bottom.
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