Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken pressed his Chinese counterpart Saturday on areas of sharp disagreement between the two nations, including China’s support of Russia’s military industrial sector, the State Department said in a statement.
Mr. Blinken met with the Chinese official, Wang Yi, on the sidelines of an annual international conference of Southeast Asian nations in the Laotian capital of Vientiane. Also in attendance was Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, who at one group session blamed the United States for provoking Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a senior State Department official told reporters traveling with Mr. Blinken.
In their meeting, Mr. Wang listened to Mr. Blinken’s criticisms, but said that China has not sent weapons to Russia, said the State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly describe diplomatic talks. Mr. Blinken was starting his most ambitious tour of Asia, flying to six countries in a week.
President Biden and his aides have recently accused China of helping Russia rebuild its defense industrial sector, mainly through the export to Russia by Chinese companies of machine tools and microelectronics that have helped the Russian army persist in its war in Ukraine.
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Mr. Blinken told Mr. Wang that defending Ukraine against Russia’s aggression was a “core interest” of the United States, using a term that Chinese officials often deploy to signal their own national priorities, the State Department official said.
Mr. Wang said that China’s approach to Ukraine has been transparent, and that it was working to promote peace and dialogue, according to a summary of the meeting in Vientiane by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Mr. Wang said the United States should stop imposing sanctions, and that China would not bow to “pressure and blackmail.”
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