At the G7 foreign ministers, meeting Thursday on the Italian island of Capri, Americans sought to rally Europeans to put pressure on China, which Washington says is providing increasing support for the country’s war effort. Russia whose army is engaged in Ukraine.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed his concerns on this subject during a working session devoted to the invasion of Ukraine and support for this country which has been facing troops for more than two years Russians, an American diplomatic source pointed out.
The Americans hope in particular that European states will put pressure on Beijing to reduce its military support for Russia, at a time when, by Washington’s own admission, Russian forces are gaining ground on Ukrainian soil.
In addition to the United States, the G7 includes Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan and Italy, which holds the presidency this year.
China is “helping Russia fight this war in a way that poses a threat to Ukraine but, quite frankly, to all of Europe,” a senior US official told reporters under the guise of anonymity, reporting “intense discussions” Thursday on this subject.
He spoke of a “growing awareness” among Europeans in this regard and specified that this warning should appear in the final G7 communiqué on Friday.
The United States has been saying for months that it has been seeing the transfer of materials from China to Russia, which Moscow is using to rebuild its defense industry, and this is being found on the battlefield in Ukraine.
Thursday morning, the head of American diplomacy insisted alongside his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kouleba on the “urgency” of increasing support for Ukraine, still a target the day before deadly Russian strikes (18 dead ), which involves the adoption by the American Congress of a budgetary envelope of 61 billion dollars, blocked for months but due to be voted on on Saturday.
“It is a question of life and death,” argued the Ukrainian minister, for whom the provision of anti-aircraft defense means to his country is the number one priority at the G7.
Blinken in China
Washington has set a red line for China — not directly supplying weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine — and has so far had no evidence to the contrary.
But the United States is increasingly denouncing Beijing’s backdoor support for Russia and is now establishing a direct link with the war in Ukraine, against a backdrop of Sino-Russian rapprochement.
This American pressure comes as Mr. Blinken is due to visit China soon, on a date which has not yet been officially announced.
Visiting Beijing on Tuesday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he had asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to put pressure on Moscow to stop its “senseless campaign” in Ukraine.
The United States has recently increased its warnings to Beijing and the question of military support for Russia was, for example, on the menu of a recent conversation between Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart.
China is helping Russia in “its largest military expansion since the Soviet era, and at a higher pace than we thought possible” at the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, assured at the end of last week a senior American official on condition of anonymity.
As an illustration of Beijing’s support for the Russian military-industrial complex, Washington cited massive purchases by Moscow of Chinese electronic components, machine tools and explosives.
Furthermore, Washington accuses “Chinese and Russian entities of working to produce drones together” in Russia.
In detail, according to information available to the American government, over the last three months of 2023, “more than 70% of Russia’s machine tool imports came from China”, which according to them allowed Russians to increase their production of ballistic missiles.
China also delivers to Russia, according to Washington, drone engines and propulsion systems for cruise missiles, as well as nitrocellulose, used to make artillery shells.