U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Saturday (July 9) he had discussed Russian actions in Ukraine during more than five hours of talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in which he raised concerns over Beijing's alignment with Moscow, Reuters reports.
Blinken was speaking at a news conference after his first in-person discussions with Wang since October, a day after attending a meeting of G20 foreign ministers on the Indonesian island of Bali.
"I shared again with the state councillor that we are concerned about the PRC's alignment with Russia," said Blinken, referring to the People's Republic of China. He said did not think China was behaving in a neutral way as it had supported Russia in the United Nations and "it's echoing Russian propaganda".
Blinken said Chinese President Xi Jinping had made it clear in a call with President Vladimir Putin on June 13 that he stood by a decision to form a partnership with Russia.
Shortly before Russia's Feb. 24 Ukraine invasion, Beijing and Moscow announced a "no limits" partnership, although. U.S. officials have said they have not seen China evade tough U.S.-led sanctions on Russia or provide it with military equipment.
U.S. officials have warned of consequences including sanctions should China offer material support for the war that Moscow calls a "special military operation" to degrade the Ukrainian military. Kyiv and its Western allies say the invasion is an unprovoked land grab.
Despite their rivalry, the world's two largest economies remain major trading partners, and Biden has been considering scrapping tariffs on a range of Chinese goods to curb surging U.S. inflation before November midterm elections, with control of Congress in focus.
Russia, represented by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, was pretty much left ‘isolated’ in the G20 meeting in Indonesia, where Lavrov walked out of a meeting, denouncing the West for "frenzied criticism" and squandering a chance to tackle global economic problems.
