Blinken: Beijing’s Stance on Ukraine ‘Doesn’t Add Up’

Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during the High-Level Meeting to Launch the Friends of Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty at UN headquarters in New York on Sept. 23, 2024. Bryan R. Smith/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during the week-long United Nations General Assembly in New York City and told reporters afterward that Beijing’s stance on Ukraine doesn’t match its actions.

“When Beijing says on the one hand that it wants peace, it wants to see an end to the conflict, but on the other hand is allowing its companies to take actions that are actually helping [Russian President Vladimir] Putin continue the aggression, that doesn’t add up,” Blinken told reporters on Sept. 27.

The United States has sanctioned about 400 companies for aiding the Russian war effort, including several Chinese companies and middlemen that have supported the Russian military and helped Russia evade international sanctions. The United States has also called on the international community to do the same.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), meanwhile, has repeatedly rejected calls to condemn Russia for its war efforts.

In a separate statement, Wang said the CCP has always supported the idea of peace talks, and he accused the United States of “smearing and planting evidence against China.”

On Sept. 27, China and Brazil led a group of developing countries at the U.N. meeting to urge Ukraine to enter peace talks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed skepticism at their efforts, saying, “You will not boost your power at Ukraine’s expense.”

Zelenskyy noted that Ukraine presented a peace plan based on international conventions two years ago, which Russia rejected.

“The peace formula has already existed for two years, and maybe somebody wants a Nobel Prize for their political biography, for [a] frozen truce, instead of real peace, but the only prizes Putin will give you in return are more suffering and disasters,” Zelenskyy told the United Nations General Assembly.

Blinken told reporters the United States’ position was not to “decouple Russia from China.”

“Their relationship is their business,” he said. “But insofar as that relationship involves providing Russia what it needs to continue this war, that’s a problem and it’s a problem for us and it’s a problem for many other countries, notably in Europe, because right now Russia presents the greatest threat, not just to Ukrainian security, but to European security since the end of the Cold War.”

He noted that nearly 70 percent of Russia’s machine tools imports and 90 percent of microelectronics were coming through China and Hong Kong.

“This is materially helping the Russians produce the missiles, the rockets, the armored vehicles, the munitions that they need to perpetuate the war, to continue their aggression,” Blinken said.

During Blinken and Wang’s meeting, they also discussed Americans who are wrongfully detained or are facing exit bans in China, human rights concerns, the risks of artificial intelligence, and illicit drugs flowing into the United States, and both sides emphasized the need to continue diplomatic talks.