SHANGHAI, China (AP) — China’s support for Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine by providing missiles and other weapons technology was a “big mistake,” U.S. Ambassador to Beijing Nicholas Burns said Wednesday.
Speaking in China’s financial capital Shanghai, Burns also said Russian aggression, now in its third year, posed an “existential threat” to Europe.
“We believe it was a huge mistake to allow Chinese companies to send thousands of components, technical parts, microprocessors and nitrocellulose to Russia to strengthen and shore up the Russian Federation’s defense industrial base in preparation for this brutal war,” Burns said.
China “is not neutral and has effectively sided with Russia in this war,” the ambassador said, adding that the decision was in direct contradiction to China’s long-standing assertion of its “sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
China claims it does not provide direct military assistance to Russia but has maintained strong trade ties throughout the conflict, along with visits by Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
China is also a major buyer of Russian oil and gas, a lifeline for Moscow’s war economy under international sanctions. China and Russia signed a pact pledging boundless friendship ahead of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. China has rejected describing the invasion in such terms and has blamed NATO for provoking Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Burns’ remarks were made during a seminar on U.S.-China relations focusing on the life of diplomat Henry Kissinger, who died last year, but there was no immediate reaction from China.
In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Burns also criticized Beijing for undermining cultural and educational exchanges between the people of China by interrogating and intimidating its citizens when they attend U.S.-sponsored events in China, tightening restrictions on embassy social media posts, and stoking anti-American sentiment.
His remarks drew condemnation from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
“It is the United States, not China, that is disrupting and hindering cultural and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said on Wednesday. “Under the false pretext of national security, the United States has harassed, interrogated and expelled Chinese students upon their arrival in the United States. These actions have caused great harm to all involved and created a chilling effect.”
In Washington, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said he agreed “totally” with “everything the ambassador said” in the interview.
“It’s very hard to improve relations between our peoples when the Chinese government is harassing American citizens in China or Chinese citizens participating or seeking to participate in U.S. programs,” Miller said.
In the past, the State Department has said it welcomes Chinese students. Less than “one-tenth of 1%” Some of them have been detained or denied entry.
Relations between Washington and Beijing remain tense over trade, territorial disputes and the self-ruled island democracy of Taiwan. The United States maintains close political and military ties with Taiwan, despite having no formal diplomatic ties with the island out of deference to Beijing.
China claims the island as its territory and would annex it by force if necessary. It recently threatened to hunt down and execute anyone it said was “fervent” in support of the island’s continued independence. There has been no indication of how China plans to respond.
