Blinken claims that China is enabling Russia's threat to Ukraine

Blinken claims that China is enabling Russia's threat to Ukraine

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has issued a warning, saying that if China continues to provide Russia the supplies it needs to attack Ukraine, Washington would take action.

The senior US ambassador told the BBC in Beijing that he had made it plain to his colleagues that they were "helping fuel the biggest threat" to European security since the end of the Cold War.

He did not specify the actions the US was ready to take.

However, Mr. Blinken was equally eager to emphasize that certain regions had shown advancements.

He applauded Beijing for its efforts to prevent the flow of fentanyl supply into the United States.

China continues to be the US's biggest supplier of fentanyl, which the White House claims is creating a national public health emergency.

Additionally, Mr. Blinken emphasized that he believed Beijing could play a "constructive" role in the Middle East, pointing out that China might use "its relationship with Iran to urge" against Israel's continued escalation of hostilities.

This is Mr. Blinken's second visit to these hostile states in ten months, and it is part of a larger diplomatic and dialogue effort to get ties back to normal after a very tense time of relations last year.

China's territorial claims in the South China Sea and Taiwan, together with US export restrictions on cutting-edge technology, have caused tensions between Washington and Beijing. Last February, a dispute over a surveillance balloon severely harmed them.

The US recently approved a rule requiring Chinese-owned TikTok to either sell the immensely popular video app or face being banned in the country; Mr. Blinken had previously disclosed that this issue had not been discussed during his visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Following their meeting in Beijing's Great Hall of the People on Friday afternoon, Mr. Xi and Mr. Blinken said that they had "made some positive progress" since his November meeting with US counterpart Joe Biden.

He went on to say that the two nations should "be partners, not rivals" and that ties could "truly stabilise, get better, and move forward" if the US adopted "a positive view of China's development".

Mr. Blinken told the BBC that Beijing "or some of its enterprises" ceasing to provide "critical components" that enable Russia to produce additional bombs would be a major step toward "better relations" between China , the US and Europe. Items like "machine tools, micro-electronics, and optics" are among the components.

"It's helping Russia perpetrate its aggression against Ukraine, but it's also creating a growing threat to Europe because of Russia's aggression," he said, adding that it was "helping to fuel the biggest threat to [Europe's] insecurity after the end of the Cold War" .

"We've taken action lately against Chinese entities that are engaged in this," he said. "And what I want to stress today is that if China won't act, we will."

Mr. Blinken was eager to emphasize that China was not directly providing Russia with weaponry, even as he alluded to the possibility of penalties.

Mr. Blinken said in his BBC interview that it was still crucial to see whether the two nations could "build greater cooperation in areas where we have mutual interest," such as military communications with artificial intelligence.