MADRID — As top U.S. and Chinese foreign policy officials appear this weekend at Europe’s premier global security conference, both are tense that their government is not seeking a new Cold War.
However, new warnings by US officials that China may be preparing to supply Russia with weapons and ammunition for its war on Ukraine, signal the worst of the War. Old cold.
During that decades-long shadow struggle, the United States, the Soviet Union, and sometimes China poured military resources into protracted wars across the globe, engaging in conflicts. bloody proxies from North Korea to Vietnam and Afghanistan.
US officials say that China, unlike Iran and North Korea, for more than a year of the war in Ukraine has refrained from providing material aid to Russia. President Biden has stressed to Chinese President Xi Jinping that any such move would have far-reaching consequences.
Undoubtedly, China’s entry into the war in that way would change the nature of the conflict, turning it into an epochal struggle involving all three of the world’s greatest superpowers and the world’s three largest superpowers. their partners on opposing sides: Russia, China, Iran and North Korea allied against the United States, Ukraine and their European and Asian allies and partners, including Japan and South Korea .
Warnings to China from Antony J. Blinken, the US secretary of state – issued in various places on Saturday and Sunday, including on television – revealed that the Biden administration believes Beijing is about to pass across the boundary. And Blinken’s public speaking shows the desperation the United States has in trying to prevent Xi and his aides from doing so.
Officials in Washington and European capitals, including in Madrid, one of Kiev’s most loyal aid providers, say they are preparing for a new Russian offensive in Ukraine this season. this spring and they need to do everything they can this winter to contain Russia. the opportunity to penetrate the Ukrainian defense.
Blinken confronted China’s top foreign policy official, Wang Yi, when the two met on Saturday night on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, telling him that Washington believes China is ” consider providing lethal support to Russia in its efforts in Ukraine.” foreign minister said in an interview with CBS News’ Margaret Brennan.
“And I was able to share with him, as President Biden shared with President Xi, the dire consequences that would have on our relationship,” Blinken said.
Blinken said the aid would include weapons and ammunition, but he did not provide details on the basic intelligence the Biden administration may have obtained.
Just before Russia invaded Ukraine last February, Moscow and Beijing published a 5,000-word statement declaring a “unlimited” partnershipcause anxiety in Washington and European capitals.
The United States has tried to discourage China from providing military aid to Russia in part by publishing intelligence findings, which has increased global public scrutiny for any potential actions. any Chinese ability to assist the Russians. In March 2022, US officials told reporters from several news organizations, including The New York Times, that Russia had ask China for aid. That revelation came just before Jake Sullivan, the White House’s national security adviser, Meet Duong Khiet TriChina’s top foreign policy official at the time, in Rome.
It was part of a broader strategic move involving Washington’s use of intelligence to try to stop the Russian war. In the months before President Vladimir V. Putin began his invasion, the Biden administration quickly released declassified intelligence to try to prevent him from sending troops in.
That didn’t work. The intelligence proved to be accurate – but Mr. Putin continued his war.
Blinken’s public comments over the weekend, and private remarks by US officials to reporters, were another chapter in the same American intelligence-disclosure strategy. Vice President Kamala Harris also warned China against backing Russia in a speech to the Munich conference on Saturday, and US officials said they had been sharing intelligence with allies.
American officials say that China strengthened its ties with Russia during the war. And last Thursday, on the eve of the security conference, Wang Wenbin, spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, speak“China is willing to work with Russia to further promote our comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership in a new era.”
Wang Yi, the foreign policy official, is expected to travel to Moscow in the coming days, a trip that US officials are watching closely. Russia said Mr. Xi would visit the country this year.
China provided diplomatic support to Russia throughout the war, and its Foreign Ministry provided official push anti-American and anti-Ukrainian conspiracy theories seem to have originated in Moscow and its allies and partners.
In January, the United States imposed sanctions on a Chinese company for providing satellite imagery to the Wagner Group, the Kremlin-linked Russian militia fighting in Ukraine. and is active in Africa and the Middle East. US officials say they have also fined several other Chinese companies for violating export controls against Russia.
The Russian military can still get it Commercial drones made in China for use in war, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The United States has very few good cards to play against China. Although the two countries remain strong trading partners, relations are at one of their lowest points in decades, made worse by the outbreak of the crisis. Chinese spy balloon entered the continental United States earlier this month.
A lengthy article about the meeting between Mr. Blinken and Mr. Wang by Xinhua, China’s state news agency, did not mention any talk of Ukraine and Russia, but did say that the two officials had clashed. conflict about the ballooning incident, and more broadly that “the United States is using all means to contain and suppress China.”
Xing Yue, a professor of international relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said tensions may not ease before summer. “I don’t think China and the US can communicate with each other in the short term,” she said.
She says the effects are far-reaching.
“The China-US relationship is not just about two countries,” she said. “It is about relations between China and Western countries. Europe will side with the US on China-US issues.”
Several countries allied with the United States mentioned the ballooning violation in their own speeches over the weekend and highlighted other areas of dispute with China.
Yoshimasa Hayashi, Japanese foreign minister, tell Wang Yi about a “balloon-shaped flying object” that appeared in Japanese airspace, according to the content of the meeting in Munich between the two officials announced by the Japanese Foreign Ministry. Hayashi also cited joint Chinese and Russian military exercises near Japan, and China’s maritime aggressions around the Senkakus, territory that Japan administers but China claims. sovereignty.
Recent public messages from other diplomats have revealed that China, Russia and the Ukraine war are the most important topics in conversations with Mr. Wang, who is on a tour around Europe. .
Catherine Colonna, French Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs, said last week that during the meeting with Mr. Wang, there was “firm discussion on Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine and measures to resolve the conflict”.
Italy’s Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, said on Italian radio last Friday that Mr. Wang had told him that Mr. Xi planned to make a “peace speech” on the war in the days to come. next.
American officials and some European officials say they are skeptical, insisting that Chinese officials are trying to appear as if China is a neutral broker looking for a peaceful deal. when in fact the country is heading towards material aid to the Russian war effort.
Barry Pavel, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, a foreign policy think tank in Washington, said in a online post The news that Mr. Xi was preparing a speech was “very disturbing both as to why China is doing this as well as considering its deadly support for Putin, and also the ‘plan’. What kind of peace plan’ can take place and how that will support Putin as well.”
David Pierson Reporting contributions from Singapore. Olivia Wang research contributions from Hong Kong.
