A much-anticipated meeting between the top diplomats from the U.S. and China over the weekend appeared to do little to clear the tensions over the shooting down of a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon and may have added new strains to the bilateral relationship.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken again chided Beijing over the balloon incident as an “unacceptable” violation of U.S. sovereignty in an hourlong meeting Saturday with Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of a major security conference in Munich, Germany.
“I made very clear to him that China sending its surveillance balloon over the United States … must never happen again,” Mr. Blinken said Saturday in an interview for CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
For his part, Mr. Wang, the senior foreign policy official for the ruling Chinese Communist Party, insisted the balloon was a civilian craft and said Washington was “overreacting” as a way to add strains to the relationship.
“The actions don’t show that the U.S. is big and strong, but describe the exact opposite,” Mr. Wang said in an address to the conference. “There are so many balloons all over the world, so is the United States going to shoot all of them down?”
While the balloon has grabbed the world’s attention, Mr. Blinken noted that he also warned Mr. Wang in their meeting about deepening Chinese support for Russia in its war with Ukraine.
China has offered rhetorical support and continued to buy Russian oil and gas in the face of international sanctions, but Mr. Blinken said there are fears China may cross a line and begin sending weapons and other direct military aid to the Kremlin.
“The concern that we have now is, based on information we have, that they’re considering providing lethal support,” Mr. Blinken said on “Face the Nation.”
“And we’ve made very clear to them that that could cause a serious problem for us and in our relationship,” Mr. Blinken said.
Mr. Blinken did not cite what new intelligence the U.S. had received, but in a subsequent interview with ABC’s “This Week,” the secretary of state said that, “for the most part, China has been engaged in providing rhetorical, political, diplomatic support to Russia” since the war began.
But the new information “gives us concern that they are considering providing lethal support to Russia in the war against Ukraine. And it was important for me to share very clearly with Wang Yi that this would be a serious problem.”
The official Chinese version of the meeting suggested Mr. Wang was not receptive to the American warning.
“We never accept the U.S.’ finger-pointing or even coercion targeting China-Russia relations,” Mr. Wang said, according to Beijing’s official read-out of the meeting. “The U.S., as a major country, is supposed to work for a political settlement of the crisis instead of fanning the flames or profiteering from the situation.”
Lu Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the state-controlled Global Times on Sunday that “the so-called warning to China is unreasonable, reckless and meaningless, [and] won’t play any constructive role on the matter.”
Mr. Blinken flew Sunday from Germany to Turkey to confer with a sometimes troublesome NATO ally and to observe rescue efforts after the devastating earthquakes that hit the region earlier this month.
The secretary of state took a helicopter tour Sunday of one of the provinces worst affected by the Feb. 6 earthquake in southern Turkey and northern Syria and later announced an additional $100 million in U.S. aid to help the victims and contribute to the rebuilding, The Associated Press reported.
President Biden had previously announced $85 million for Turkey and Syria days after the earthquakes that has killed more than 44,000 people. Washington has also sent a search and rescue team, medical supplies and equipment. Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base, home to a major U.S. Air Force presence, has served as a key logistics hub for aid agencies trying to reach survivors and provide humanitarian relief.
Later in the day, Mr. Blinken flew to Ankara for talks Monday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has raised objections to the U.S.-backed applications from Sweden and Finland to join the NATO alliance.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• David R. Sands can be reached at dsands@washingtontimes.com.
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