Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China this week with a fresh threat regarding Beijing\u2019s support for Russia, as the House greenlit a new $61 billion aid package for Ukraine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A senior State Department official previewed Blinken\u2019s upcoming April 24-26 trip to China in call with reporters on Friday, describing how he will meet with senior PRC officials in both Shanghai and Beijing.<\/p>\n
\u2018I don\u2019t have anything specific to announce to you today, but I\u2019ll just underscore that as you\u2019ve seen us demonstrate over the past many weeks and months, we\u2019re committed to taking the steps necessary to defend our national interests, and we\u2019re prepared to take steps when we believe necessary against firms that are taking steps in contravention to our interests and in ways that \u2013 as we\u2019ve indicated here \u2013 severely undermine security in both Ukraine and Europe,\u2019 the senior State Department official said. \u2018And I think we\u2019ve demonstrated our willingness to do so regarding firms from a number of countries, not just China.\u00a0And at any rate, again, I think this will be a key issue of discussion while we\u2019re in Beijing.\u2019<\/p>\n
With his G7 foreign ministerial counterparts, Blinken on Friday discussed concern \u2018about the transfers to Russia from businesses in the PRC of a range of dual-use materials and weapons components that Russia is using to advance its military production,\u2019 the official said. \u2018The concern there is that through Chinese support, Russia has largely reconstituted its defense industrial base, which has an impact not just on the battlefield in Ukraine but poses a larger threat, we believe, to broader European security.<\/p>\n
Blinken and other U.S. diplomats will express those concerns to China and \u2018our intent to have China curtail that support,\u2019 which is starting to pose \u2018a threat to European security,\u2019 the official said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The State Department could not immediately confirm whether Blinken will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The senior State Department official did confirm to reporters that Blinken is expected to meet with his counterpart, Director and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In Shanghai and Beijing, the secretary will focus \u2018on implementing the leaders\u2019 commitments in San Francisco to advance cooperation on issues such as counternarcotics, bolster mil-mil communication, and establish talks on artificial intelligence risks and safety,\u2019 the senior State Department official said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The State Department outlined three goals for Blinken\u2019s trip: \u2018making progress on key issues,\u2019 \u2018clearly and directly communicating concerns on bilateral, regional, and global issues\u2019 and third, \u2018responsibly managing competition\u2019 so \u2018that it does not result in miscalculation or conflict.\u2019<\/p>\n
Blinken is expected to \u2018raise clearly and candidly our concerns on issues ranging from human rights, unfair economic and trade practices, to the global economic consequences of PRC industrial over-capacity.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
The official said the secretary \u2018will also reiterate our deep concerns regarding the PRC\u2019s support for Russia\u2019s defense industrial base,\u2019 \u2018discuss the crisis in the Middle East\u2019 and \u2018challenges in the Indo-Pacific, including PRC provocations in the South China Sea, as well as the DPRK\u2019s threatening rhetoric and reckless actions.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Blinken will \u2018discuss the crisis in Burma\u2019 and \u2018will also reaffirm the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,\u2019 the official told reporters.<\/p>\n
At the G7 summit last week, Blinken outlined the type of aid China is sending to Russia. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018When it comes to Russia\u2019s defense industrial base, the primary contributor in this moment to that is China,\u2019 Blinken told reporters in Capri, Italy. \u2018We see China sharing machine tools, semiconductors, other dual-use items that have helped Russia rebuild the defense industrial base that sanctions and export controls had done so much to degrade. Now, if China purports on the one hand to want good relations with Europe and other countries, it can\u2019t on the other hand be fueling what is the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China this week with a fresh threat regarding Beijing\u2019s support for Russia, as the House greenlit a new $61 billion aid package for Ukraine.\u00a0 A senior State Department official previewed Blinken\u2019s upcoming April 24-26 trip to China in call with reporters on Friday, describing how he will <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":18224,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18223","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}