Tag: Blinken

Blinken: ‘Deep concern’ that China could provide lethal support for Russia’s war in Ukraine

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Blinken quickly segued into the United States’ “deep concern” that China is considering providing potentially lethal supplies to Russia in their renewed offensive against Ukraine.
“We’ve seen already over these past months the provision of nonlethal assistance that does go directly to aiding and abetting Russia’s war effort. And some further information that we are sharing today, and that I think will be out there soon, that indicates that they are strongly considering providing lethal assistance to Russia,” Blinken said.
Speaking earlier Saturday at the Munich conference in Germany, Vice President Kamala Harris said Russia has committed “crimes against humanity” in Ukraine and is responsible for a “widespread and systematic attack” against Ukraine’s civilian population — citing evidence of execution-style killings, rape, torture and forceful deportations.
Wang, who spoke after Harris at the conference, publicly slammed the U.S. response to the balloon that overflew the country as a “weak” and “near-hysterical” reaction; he also accused the U.S. of warmongering.
On China potentially aiding Russia’s war effort, Blinken said: “We see China considering this; we have not seen them cross that line. So I think it’s important that we make clear, as I did this evening in my meeting with Wang Yi, that this is something that is of deep concern to us. And I made clear the importance of not crossing that line, and the fact that it would have serious consequences in our own relationship, something that we do not need on top of the balloon incident that China’s engaged in.”
Pressed further by Margaret Brennan on CBS News’ “Face The Nation” on what would constitute lethal support to Russia’s war effort, Blinken replied: “Weapons. … Primarily weapons.”
“There’s a whole gamut of things that fit in that category, everything from ammunition to the weapons themselves,” he added.
Blinken said the U.S. has concerns over Chinese companies potentially providing equipment to Russian-backed mercenary groups operating in Ukraine, including the Wagner Group.

“To date, we have seen Chinese companies and of course, in China, there’s really no distinction between private companies and the state. We have seen them provide non-lethal support to Russia for use in Ukraine. The concern that we have now is based on information we have that they’re considering providing lethal support,” he said.
Blinken characterized the U.S. relationship with China as “competitive” and “among the most consequential but also complex relationships that we have,” adding that “we have a strong interest in trying to manage the relationship responsibly, and to make sure, to the best of our ability, that competition doesn’t veer into conflict or into cold war.”
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#Blinken #Deep #concern #China #provide #lethal #support #Russias #war #Ukraine
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 19, 2023
Negotiations ongoing for Blinken meeting with Chinese official in Munich

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Another Washington, D.C.-based diplomat with knowledge of the talks said Blinken had requested a meeting but “had no response from China” as he boarded his flight for Munich on Thursday.
Bloomberg first reported on Monday that Blinken was considering meeting with Wang at the conference, which opened Friday and continues through Sunday.
But there are signs that Blinken is operating under the assumption that a Munich meeting with Wang Yi is highly likely. “Some of the officials who would need to be there for such a meeting left with Blinken to Munich in anticipation of a potential meeting,” said a third Washington, D.C.-based diplomat familiar with the trip’s participants. All three diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to give public statements about the negotiations.
Neither the State Department nor the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., responded to a request for comment.
The meeting would be the first face-to-face attempt by the Biden administration to address the Chinese spy balloon the U.S. shot down off the coast of South Carolina a week ago.
The potential meeting carries political risk for President Joe Biden, who is trying to balance his administration’s desire to maintain “open lines of communication” with Beijing amid a widening bipartisan uproar about what both a House and a Senate resolution have declared was a “brazen violation” of U.S. sovereignty.
Already tense relations have only been souring since the Pentagon revealed the balloon’s presence over the northwestern U.S. earlier this month. Blinken postponed his originally planned Feb. 5-6 trip to Beijing in response to the incursion. Biden said on Thursday that he’d make “no apologies” for the balloon’s destruction and that he’d be speaking to Chinese leader Xi Jinping to “get to the bottom” of the incident.
The Chinese government has insisted the balloon was a civilian airship for meteorological purposes and has criticized its destruction as “a trigger-happy overreaction.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin signaled a softening in Beijing’s position called on Thursday by calling for bilateral ties to shift to “the track of sound and steady development.”

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#Negotiations #ongoing #Blinken #meeting #Chinese #official #Munich
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 18, 2023
Blinken: Crimea a ‘red line’ for Putin as Ukraine weighs plans to retake it

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According to four people with knowledge of Blinken’s response, he conveyed that the U.S. isn’t actively encouraging Ukraine to retake Crimea, but that the decision is Kyiv’s alone. The administration’s main focus is helping Ukraine advance where the fight is, mainly in the east.
That assessment echoes comments from Pentagon officials in recent weeks, who have spoken about the grinding fight still raging in the Donbas and in the country’s south, and who have questioned Ukraine’s ability to take Crimea in the near future.
Blinken, according to two of the people, gave the impression that the U.S. doesn’t consider a push to retake Crimea to be a wise move at this time. He didn’t say those words explicitly, they underscored.
Two other people didn’t take Blinken’s comments that way. The secretary remarked that it is solely the Ukrainians’ decision as to what they try to take by force, not America’s. That signaled to them that Blinken was more open to a potential Ukrainian play for Crimea.
While U.S. and NATO diplomats and military officials have never wavered from publicly stating that Crimea is part of Ukraine, since 2014 they have done little to contest Russia’s invasion and occupation of the peninsula.
“Overall the message is that there is a lot of uncertainty on how things will go from here with real questions about capacity of either side to make big gains,” one of the people said.
The four people spoke to POLITICO on the condition of anonymity to discuss the contents of an off-the-record conversation. The State Department declined to comment on the Zoom call, similar to others the secretary has had with experts to get outside perspectives on the conflict.
Blinken will join foreign dignitaries, including Ukrainian officials, at the Munich Security Conference this week. The diplomat will speak to them about how to coordinate future security assistance to the country as the war enters its second year.

Blinken, who was accompanied by Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland in the session, is the latest senior Biden administration official to throw some cold water on Ukrainian designs on Crimea. Two weeks ago, senior Pentagon officials told members of the House Armed Services Committee that they didn’t think Ukraine could recapture the peninsula in the near future.
That assessment followed comments by Gen. Mark Milley, the Joint Chiefs chair, who has long signaled skepticism about the prospects of a Ukrainian advance.
“I still maintain that for this year it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from all — every inch of Ukraine and occupied — or Russian-occupied Ukraine,” he said during a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany on Jan. 20. “That doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Doesn’t mean it won’t happen, but it’d be very, very difficult.”
Some experts don’t believe Ukraine will try to retake Crimea, but instead will attempt to isolate it. “There are three critical points: the land bridge to Russia, the Kerch Strait bridge, and the naval base at Sevastopol. They should knock out all three,” said Kurt Volker, the former U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, who wasn’t on the call. “This would leave a lot of Russian forces without adequate support, without Ukraine actually trying to overrun Crimea, and it would still be a severe blow to Russia’s military effort.”
Occupied Crimea is bristling with air defenses, ammunition depots, and tens of thousands of troops. Many of those infantry forces are dug into fortified positions stretching hundreds of miles facing off against Ukrainian troops along the Dnipro River.
Punching through those Russian lines would be difficult for Ukrainian troops, even with the influx of artillery and armored vehicles arriving from Western donors.
The Ukrainian government has for months called for long-range artillery to begin hitting positions far behind Russia’s front lines, including in Crimea, where Russian forces have moved their headquarters and critical depots out of the 50-mile range of the rockets the U.S. has provided.
Kyiv has said that Army Tactical Missile Systems, fired from existing launchers, could hit those targets. The Biden administration has so far refused to provide them, initially claiming they were concerned Ukraine would launch attacks into Russia. U.S. officials have also said recently that there aren’t enough ATACMS in U.S. stockpiles to spare.
Speaking in Brussels Tuesday after another meeting of the Contact Group, Milley said “the Ukrainians are holding. They’re fighting the defense. The Russians, primarily the Wagner Group, are attacking, but there’s … a very significant grinding battle of attrition with very high casualties, especially on the Russian side.”
Meanwhile, the White House is privately up in arms over a Washington Post story on Monday featuring comments from an unnamed senior official questioning U.S. weapons aid through the end of the war. Officials say the comment didn’t reflect administration policy, reiterating that America’s support will proceed for “as long as it takes.”
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#Blinken #Crimea #red #line #Putin #Ukraine #weighs #plans #retake
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 16, 2023
China violated sovereignty of nations across 5 continents: Blinken on surveillance balloon

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Washington: China has violated the sovereignty of not just the United States but of countries across five continents, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said, days after American fighter jets shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon.
Earlier this week, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman briefed diplomats from about 40 friendly nations, including India, Japan and Australia, over the Chinese surveillance balloon.
The huge balloon was shot down on by a US fighter jet on Saturday off the coast of South Carolina in the Atlantic Ocean. It had hovered over continental America for several days after entering the US airspace on January 30 in Montana.
US officials have described the balloon as being about 60m tall, with the payload portion comparable in size to a regional aircraft.
China has acknowledged that the balloon was theirs but denied that it was for surveillance purposes rather for weather monitoring and that it had drifted off course.
The US, however, has asserted that it has enough evidence to prove that this was a surveillance balloon. It accused China of intruding on its sovereignty and violating international laws.
China on the other hand has alleged that the United States has violated international law by shooting down its balloon.
According to a report of The Washington Post, based on interviews with several anonymous defence and intelligence officials, China has operated a fleet of spy balloons targeting several countries including India and Japan.

At a joint news briefing on Wednesday with the visiting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Blinken said, “The United States was not the only target of this broader programme which has violated the sovereignty of countries across five continents.” “In our engagements, we are again hearing from our partners that the world expects China and the United States to manage our relationship responsibly. That’s precisely what we’ve set out to do. We continue to urge China to do the same,” he told reporters.
Reacting to the statements from Washington, China on Thursday repeated its stand that the large unmanned balloon was a civilian meteorological airship that had accidentally blown off course and that the US had “overreacted” by shooting it down.
Responding to questions at a foreign ministry briefing in Beijing, ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that she has not heard of China possessing a “fleet of balloons.” “I am not aware of any “fleet of balloons”,” Mao said.
“That narrative is probably part of the information and public opinion warfare the US has waged on China. As to who is the world’s number one country of spying, eavesdropping and surveillance, that is plainly visible to the international community,” she said, referring to the US.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon said that China has declined Washington’s request for a telephonic call between US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Beijing counterpart Gen Wei Fenghe.
On Wednesday, Stoltenberg said the Chinese balloon over the United States confirms a pattern of Chinese behaviour, and it has been seen that Beijing over the last few years has invested heavily in new military capabilities, including different types of surveillance and intelligence platforms.
“We have also seen increased Chinese intelligence activities in Europe – again, different platforms. They use satellites, cyber, and as we’ve seen over the United States, also balloons.
“So, we have to be vigilant. We need to be aware of the constant risk of Chinese intelligence and then step up what we do to protect ourselves,” the NATO secretary general said while highlighting that security is not regional but global.
What happens in Asia matters for Europe, and what happens in Europe matters for Asia and also North America, he said.
“This message was confirmed during my visit to Japan and South Korea last week, where those close partners of NATO very much highlighted the importance of strengthening the cooperation between NATO and our partners in the Indo-Pacific to address the challenges that China poses to our security, values, and interests,” Stoltenberg said.
Defense Department Spokesperson Gen Pat Ryder told reporters at a Pentagon news conference that the US is in the process of updating its international allies and partners.
“Clearly, we maintain an intelligence-sharing relationship with many countries, and so as we have information to provide and as we currently are, we will share that information,” he said.
Ryder said that Chinese balloons have been spotted in various parts of the world.
“When you look at the scope of this (Chinese balloon surveillance) programme and the fact that we know that these balloons have been spotted, and what we now can subsequently assess to be Chinese balloons operating over at least five continents in regions like Latin America, South America, Southeast Asia, East Asia and Europe.
“It demonstrates why, for the Department of Defense, China remains the pacing challenge, and something that we’ll continue to stay focused on,” he said.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that these balloons are all part of a “Chinese fleet” developed to conduct surveillance operations, which have also violated the sovereignty of other countries.
“Over the past several years, Chinese balloons have previously been spotted over countries across five continents. We have been in touch with allies and partners on this issue,” she said.
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#China #violated #sovereignty #nations #continents #Blinken #surveillance #balloon
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 9, 2023
Palestinian Prez blames Israel for tension in meeting with Blinken

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Ramallah: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the Israeli government “is fully responsible for the current tension and violence in the Palestinian territories”.
Abbas made the remarks during a meeting held at the presidential headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah with Blinken, who is on a three-day Middle East visit that started on Sunday, the official Palestinian news agency (WAFA) reported on Tuesday.
“The Israeli government is responsible for the deterioration on the ground today because it has undermined the two-state solution and violated the signed agreements,” he was quoted as saying.
The Palestinian President also accused the international community of failing to end the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories and end the Israeli settlement policy in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Xinhua news agency reported.
He added that there is a lack of international efforts to recognise the Palestinian state and its full membership in the UN.
“There is also opposition to the efforts of the Palestinians to defend their existence and their legitimate rights in international forums and courts and to provide international protection for our people,” Abbas noted.
He told Blinken that “this policy encourages the Israeli occupier to commit more crimes and violates international law”.
The Palestinian President listed to US Secretary of State the Israeli unilateral actions and violations, including settlements, actual annexation of lands, settler terror, storming Palestinian territory, killing crimes, and house demolitions.

“Israel is being overlooked, without deterrence or accountability, as it continues its unilateral operations and crimes against the Palestinians and their properties,” said Abbas.
He added that “the complete cessation of unilateral Israeli actions, which violate the signed agreements and international law, is the main entry point for returning the political horizon and ending the Israeli occupation”.
“All this can be achieved under international references and the Arab Peace Initiative to make peace, stability, and security for all in our region and the world,” Abbas said.
The Palestinians want to end the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in 1967 and establish an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Peace negotiations sponsored by the US had stopped in 2014 following deep differences on issues like settlement, security and the Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state.
The Palestinian Health Ministry had earlier stated that since January 1, the Israeli Army had killed 34 Palestinians, including children and women, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Palestinian officials had warned of the Israeli escalation of killing Palestinians, mainly after the formation of the new Israeli government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which is the most right-wing in Israel’s history.
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#Palestinian #Prez #blames #Israel #tension #meeting #Blinken
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 1, 2023