Blinken rebukes China’s top diplomat on balloon, Ukraine

Bloomberg

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned China’s top diplomat against providing lethal aid to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and rebuked him over an alleged Chinese spy balloon that heightened tensions between the world’s largest economies.
Blinken told Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi in Munich that the US had information China was considering whether to give Russia assistance,
possibly including guns and weapons, for the war in Ukraine. The US has warned China since the start of the invasion a year ago not to do so.
“The concern that we have now is, based on information
we have, that they’re considering providing lethal support,” Blinken told CBS’s “Face the Nation” shortly after he met with Wang. “And we’ve made very clear to them that that could cause a serious problem for us and in our relationship.”
In their first in-person talks since the uproar over the balloon, Blinken told Wang that the craft’s entry into US airspace was an “irresponsible act that must never again occur” and warned China against helping Russia evade sanctions linked to the invasion of Ukraine, State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
Wang said in the meeting that the US should change how it’s handling the balloon episode,
according to the official Xinhua News Agency, and move to “repair the damage that its excessive use of force caused to China-US relations.”
Blinken’s remarks — and comments by Wang, including sharply criticising the US over Taiwan and recently introduced export controls — highlighted just how strained relations remain. Despite statements from both nations’ leaders that they want to stabilise the relationship, the disagreements made clear the US and China are nowhere near restoring normalcy to the world’s most consequential bilateral relationship.
The meeting took
place on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. Wang lashed out at the US beforehand, calling President Joe Biden’s decision to shoot down the balloon
over American airspace and the heightened state of alert “incomprehensible and almost hysterical.” The airship, which China said was a weather device blown off course, led Blinken to cancel a planned trip to Beijing.
An F-22 fighter shot the balloon down off the South Carolina coast on February 4. Since the balloon was identified and shot down, the US and China have traded accusations over global espionage efforts.
The US said the balloon over the US was part of a fleet of spy devices directed by China’s People’s Liberation Army. China countered that the US was overreacting and had flown similar airships over China — claims the White House has rejected.