Blinken made this observation as he concluded his three-day visit to China.
Beijing:
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, wrapping up his three-day trip to China, said the US has seen evidence of Chinese attempts to “influence and possibly interfere” in the upcoming US election, despite the Chinese president’s previous commitment Xi Jinping of not doing so, CNN reported.
Blinken made the comments in an interview with CNN on Friday as he wrapped up his visit to China, where the top American diplomat spent hours meeting with senior Chinese officials, including Xi, as the two countries navigated a range of contentious issues, from US technological controls to Beijing’s support for Moscow.
Blinken said he reiterated President Joe Biden’s message, which he gave to Xi Jinping during their San Francisco summit last November, not to interfere in the 2024 US presidential election.
After that, Xi promised that China would not do so, according to CNN.
“We have seen, by and large, evidence of attempts to influence and possibly interfere, and we want to make sure that that is stopped as quickly as possible,” Blinken said when asked whether China was violating Xi’s commitment to Biden so far.
“Any interference by China in our elections is something we are looking at very carefully and is completely unacceptable to us, so I wanted to make sure they heard that message again,” he added.
Blinken further noted that there were concerns about China and other countries taking advantage of existing social divisions in the US in influence campaigns, as reported by CNN.
Beijing has repeatedly said it does not interfere in US elections, based on its principle of non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs.
However, China or other nations believed to be affiliated with Beijing have been accused of political interference in other countries, such as Canada, according to CNN.
Blinken’s trip, marking his second visit to the country in less than a year, is the latest in a series of high-level engagements that culminated in the Biden-Xi summit late last year and that saw the two countries begin to expanding what had been severely diminished bilateral communications.
“We are (now) focused on areas where we are working to cooperate, but we are also being very open about our differences and that is important if we are to avoid the competition that we are turning into conflict,” Blinken said. he said.
(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
This story originally appeared on Ndtv.com read the full story
