"You can't have it both ways": Blinken criticizes China for supplying Russian defense industry
Kyiv • UNN
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken criticized China for supplying the Russian defense industry, saying it undermines China's efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine and improve Sino-European relations.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken has criticised China for supplying Russia’s defence industry, saying the Chinese can’t "have it both ways" in seeking an end to the conflict and better relations between China and Europe, while also providing goods that are building what Blinken termed "the greatest challenge to European security since the end of the cold war", UNN reports citing The Guardian.
Details
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia, Blinken said: "We have engaged with China from the start of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, and urged them not to provide Russia with arms, with weapons that would fuel the aggression."
And I think it’s fair to say that China has not directly supplied Russia with weapons, with missiles, with munitions. Iran is doing it. North Korea is doing it. However, what China is doing, is providing invaluable support to Russia’s defence industrial base that’s helping Russia deal with the massive pressure that’s been exerted through sanctions, through export controls and other measures
According to him, "if you look at what Russia has done over the last year, in terms of its production of munitions, missiles, tanks and armoured vehicles, it has produced them at a faster pace than at any time in its modern history, including during the cold war as the Soviet Union."
"How has it been able to do that? Because it is getting massive inputs of machine tools, micro electronics, optics, mostly coming from China. Now these are dual-use items, but we know very clearly where so many of them are going. And this poses two problems," said the Secretary of State.
"It is enabling Russia to continue the aggression against Ukraine. So it’s perpetuating a war that China says it would like to see come to an end. As all of us would. But second, it’s also enabling Russia to rebuild a defence industrial base that countries throughout Europe are deeply concerned will be turned against them after Ukraine is done. And so at the very time that China is seeking better relations with countries in Europe, it is also fueling the greatest challenge to European security since the end of the cold war. And as I shared with my Chinese colleagues, you can’t have it both ways," Blinken said.
