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US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Wednesday, April 24, arrived on a visit to China due to the country's growing concern that the Russian Federation's war against Ukraine was made possible by Chinese aid to Moscow with weapons. In this way, Blinken plans to push China's leaders to cut ties with the Kremlin. The Washington Post writes about it.
The publication emphasized that the talks in Shanghai and Beijing will be aimed at settling relations that have become "more acute and controversial" due to ongoing discussions about China's role in the war in Ukraine, Beijing's claims to the South China Sea and US actions aimed at reducing dependence on the Chinese technology sector.
“The Senate's passage on Tuesday of a bill requiring TikTok's Chinese owners to sell their company will no doubt add further controversy from the Chinese side. This will be the second visit by a high-ranking US diplomat to China after relations hit rock bottom early last year when a Chinese spy balloon flew over the continental United States," the report said.
After the US imposed many sanctions against the Russian Federation, the administration of President Joe Biden accused China of trying to support Russia's defense sector, which leads to the death of civilians in Ukraine. Officials expressed the hope that a joint position with Europe would be more effective than individual actions of the United States.
"When it comes to the Russian defense and industrial base, the main supplier at the moment is China," Blinken emphasized to journalists last week after a meeting of the world's leading economies in Italy.
The politician added that China supplies the Russian Federation with machine tools, semiconductors and other goods that helped the aggressor country restore its defense industry two years after the start of the full-scale invasion.
"If China, on the one hand, claims good relations with Europe and other countries, it cannot, on the other hand, fuel what is the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War," Blinken explained.
At the same time, American officials noted that the current level of support for the Kremlin from China is very high. They warned their partners that if Chinese companies continue to supply the Russian Federation with dual-use components subject to the embargo, they themselves may be subject to devastating sanctions.
"We are ready to take measures, when we deem it necessary, against companies that take steps that are contrary to our interests. Our goal will be to clearly justify what the consequences of this support will be and why it may not actually be in China's interests in the future," a senior State Department official told reporters anonymously on the eve of the trip.
Blinken will have to convince Chinese President Xi Jinping that this latest appeal is not an attempt to “drive a wedge” between him and Putin, according to Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund, a think tank.
The analyst said the U.S. should show China's leader that curbing specific trade that helps Putin in the military effort could help stabilize relations with Washington.
"China really does not want to be at the center of our election campaign," she explained.
In turn, some officials believe that there will be no quick changes in China's behavior, because Biden wants to isolate Chinese industry and break trade ties with Beijing. However, the US president now has less leverage over the Chinese economy than in the past. Officials say China is also reluctant to cut ties with the Kremlin, as it views Russia as a key partner in a world it sees as largely dominated by the United States.
Relations between Russia and China
Earlier, Reuters reported that Russia and China trade new copper under the guise of scrap to circumvent Western sanctions. According to the journalists, the copper rod is a rod with a diameter of 5-10 millimeters, which was crushed by an intermediary in the Xinjiang Uyghur region so that it would be difficult to distinguish it from scrap. Thanks to such a scheme, exporters and importers benefited from the difference in tariffs applied to scrap and new metal.
It was also reported that the US targeted Chinese banks because the country helps Russia.
"As Secretary of State Anthony Blinken heads to Beijing on April 23, the question is whether even the threat of the US using one of its most powerful tools of financial coercion can put an end to the complex and fast-growing trade between Beijing and Moscow that has allowed the Kremlin to rebuild an army badly damaged over two years of hostilities in Ukraine," The Wall Street Journal reported.
