What game is China playing? Setting the scene a few hours before an exchange between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, the United States said Thursday that Beijing would expose itself to reprisals if it were to “support Russian aggression” against Ukraine.
“We are concerned that they plan to directly assist Russia with military equipment that would be used in Ukraine. President Biden will speak to President Xi tomorrow, and make it clear to him that China will bear responsibility for any act to support Russian aggression, and that we will not hesitate to impose costs on it,” the leader said Thursday. of American diplomacy Antony Blinken. This is the clearest warning issued by the United States to China since the start of the invasion of Ukraine.
This meeting scheduled for Friday morning between the two heads of state, aims to “keep the channels of communication open between the United States and the People’s Republic of China”, said in a press release the spokeswoman for the American executive Jen Psaki. This is a constant concern of the American president, for whom the United States and China are certainly destined to engage in ruthless competition, but by maintaining sufficient dialogue.
An “alignment of China with Russia”
The United States has therefore raised its tone even further, having already considered “deeply worrying” the position of “China’s alignment with Russia” in the face of the war in Ukraine. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24, the Chinese communist regime, privileging its relationship with Moscow, has refrained from calling on Russian President Vladimir Putin to withdraw his troops from Ukraine.
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But the “boundless friendship” professed by Beijing and Moscow is being tested by the war in Ukraine. President Xi Jinping’s regime seems to have been surprised by Ukrainian resistance to the Russian offensive and by the strength of Western sanctions. Beyond the question of possible military assistance to Russia, Washington does not want China to help Moscow mitigate the impact of these sanctions that are supposed to strangle the Kremlin financially and economically.