Foreign Minister Antony Blinken made a statement after meeting Chinese diplomat Wang Yi on Saturday (February 18).
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Saturday (February 18, 2023) that China was considering providing “deadly support” to Russia in the war against Ukraine.
The American met with Chinese diplomat Wang Yi at the 59th Security Conference in Munich, Germany, the first meeting between officials from the two countries since the diplomatic crisis sparked by the downing of a Chinese balloon rumored to be serving to protect the United States spy in the US earlier this month.
“The concern we have now is based on information they have [chineses] consider providing deadly support [à Rússia]and we made it very clear that doing so would cause a serious problem for us and our relationship,” Blinken told CBS News Saturday (Feb. 18) after meeting Wang.
According to the secretary, some Chinese private companies are already supplying nonlethal equipment to Russia without specifying which ones.
Now, however, the Chinese government — which the secretary says is in control of the private sector and behind the supplies — would also look into providing arms and ammunition to bolster the Russian side as the war draws to a close a year later Friday (Feb 24) with no clear outcome.
During the conference in Munich on Saturday (February 18), US Vice President Kamala Harris accused Moscow of having committed “crimes against humanity” during the war.
The problem is considered more serious than war crimes under international law, as it means that acts such as murder, rape and rape were not only widespread by a particular country during a military conflict, but were systematically and deliberately directed against civilians.
Blinken said the evidence of alleged Russian crimes being reviewed by the US government was “unfortunately completely unclear.”
In response to Kamala Harris, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, said on the embassy’s Telegram channel that Washington was trying to “demonize” Moscow and stoke the crisis in Ukraine with accusations that it was part of a “hybrid war” would be. against the country.
TENSION BETWEEN USA AND CHINA
On February 2, the US Department of Defense announced that it had spotted a “highaltitude Chinese surveillance balloon” over US territory. The equipment was located in the state of Montana near Malmstrom Air Force Base, where there are three fields of nuclear missile silos, a structure for storing and launching ballistic missiles.
“As soon as the balloon was spotted, the US government acted immediately to protect itself from the collection of classified information,” the Pentagon said in a statement. Here is the full text (22 KB, in English).
The following day, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken decided to postpone the February 5 trip to China. He was due to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang to discuss the two countries’ relations and the increase in Covid19 cases in China.
On February 4, the United States claimed to have shot down the balloon off the coast of South Carolina after it flew over sensitive military terrain. The balloon represented a heightening of tensions between Americans and Chinese, who exchanged accusations about the episode.
China claims the object was a device “used for research purposes, mainly meteorological” that deviated from its course due to wind currents. On Saturday (February 18), Wang Yi said the US reaction to the balloon had been “hysterical”.
“There are so many balloons around the world and several countries have them, so the United States is going to shoot them all down?” he explained during the Munich Security Conference.