NUSA DUA, Indonesia – China’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine is complicating US-China relations at a time when they are already beset by fractures and enmity over numerous other issues, the secretary said Saturday of the United States, Antony Blinken, to his Chinese counterpart.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi blamed the United States for the fall in relations and said U.S. policy has been derailed by what he called a misperception of China as a threat.
“A lot of people believe that the United States suffers from a phobia in China,” he said, according to a Chinese statement. “If this threat expansion is allowed to grow, U.S. policy toward China will be a dead end.”
In five hours of talks at its first meeting since October, Blinken said he expressed deep concern over China’s position on Russia’s actions in Ukraine and that he did not believe the Beijing protests were neutral in the conflict.
The talks had been organized in a new effort to try to curb or at least manage the unbridled hostility that has come to define recent relations between Washington and Beijing.
“We are concerned about the alignment of the PRC with Russia,” Blinken told reporters after the meeting in the Indonesian tourist resort of Bali. He said it is difficult to be “neutral” in a conflict in which there is a clear aggressor, but that even if it were possible, “I do not think China is acting in a neutral way.”
The Chinese statement said the two sides held an in-depth exchange of views on Ukraine, but did not provide details.
The Biden administration had hoped that China, with its long history of opposition to what it sees as interference in its own internal affairs, would take a similar position with Russia and Ukraine. But it has not done so, choosing instead what American officials see as a hybrid position that is damaging the norm-based international order.
Blinken said all nations, including China, can lose if that order is eroded.
The two men met a day after the two attended a meeting of senior diplomats from the Group of 20 rich and large developing countries that ended without a joint call to end Russia’s war in Ukraine or plan how address their impacts on food and energy. security.
However, Blinken said he believed Russia had come out of the G-20 meeting isolated and alone, as most participants expressed opposition to the Ukraine war. However, ministers were unable to reach a unified G-20 call to end the conflict.
“There was a strong consensus and Russia was left isolated,” Blinken said of individual condemnations of Russia’s actions by several ministers, some of whom avoided talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. .
He noted that Lavrov had left the meeting prematurely, possibly because he did not like what he heard from his counterparts.
“It was very important that he heard loud and clear from around the world the condemnation of Russia’s aggression,” Blinken said, adding: “We see no indication that Russia is ready to participate in diplomacy “.
On China, Blinken said he and Wang discussed a number of controversial issues from tariffs and trade and human rights in Taiwan and disputes in the South China Sea that have been complicated by China’s position on Ukraine.
Wang called on the US to lift tariffs on Chinese imports as soon as possible, to stop interfering in its country’s internal affairs and to refrain from harming its interests in the name of human rights and democracy. He also accused the United States of using “salami cutting” tactics in Taiwan, an autonomous island that China claims as its territory and says it should pass under its control.
Just two days earlier, the country’s top military officers had clashed in Taiwan during a virtual meeting. Blinken said he stressed the U.S.’s concerns about “China’s increasingly provocative rhetoric and activity near Taiwan and the vital importance of maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.” He added that he had also raised human rights concerns regarding minorities in Tibet and the western Xinjiang region.
Wang refuted some “US misconceptions” about Xinjiang, Hong Kong and the South China Sea, the Chinese statement said.
U.S. officials had said early on that they did not expect any progress on Blinken’s talks with Wang. But they said they hoped the conversation could help keep lines of communication open and create “guardrails” to guide the world’s two largest economies as they navigate increasingly complex and potentially explosive issues.
“We are committed to managing this relationship, this competition responsibly, just as the world expects us to do,” Blinken said.
The United States and China have raised increasingly conflicting positions, including on Ukraine, which some fear could lead to miscalculations and conflicts. The US has watched cautiously as China refuses to criticize the Russian invasion, while condemning Western sanctions against Russia and accusing the US and NATO of provoking the conflict.
At the G-20 meeting, Wang made an oblique reference to China’s policy on global stability, saying that “putting one’s own security above the security of others and intensifying military blocs will only divide the international community.” and it will become less secure, ”he said. the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
On Thursday, the joint chairman of China’s chiefs of staff, General Li Zuocheng, criticized his American counterpart, General Mark Milley, for Washington’s support for Taiwan.
He demanded that the United States cease military “collusion” with Taiwan, saying China “has no room for compromise” on issues affecting its “core interests.”
The meeting between Li and Milley followed the ardent comments of Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe at a regional security conference last month which was also attended by U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
Wei accused the United States of trying to “hijack” the support of countries in the Asia-Pacific region to turn them against Beijing, saying Washington is seeking to advance its own interests “in the guise of multilateralism.” .
At the same meeting in Singapore, Austin said China was causing instability with its claim to Taiwan and increased military activity in the area.
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Associated Press writer Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.