US ambassador calls China’s tech support for Russia during Ukraine invasion a ‘major mistake’

Shanghai, China — China’s support for Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine by providing technology for missiles and other weapons is a “big mistake,” US Ambassador to Beijing Nicholas Burns said on Wednesday.

In a speech in the Chinese financial center of Shanghai, Burns also said the Russian invasion, now in its third year, had become an “existential crisis” in Europe.

“We believe that it is a big mistake to allow thousands of Chinese companies to send so many components, technological components, microprocessors (and) nitrocellulose to Russia to reinforce and strengthen the defense industrial base of the Russian Federation for this brutal war. “Burns said.

China “is not neutral, but it has effectively sided with Russia in this war,” the ambassador said, adding that the decision directly contradicted China’s long-standing insistence on “sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

China insists it does not provide direct military aid to Russia, but has maintained strong trade ties throughout the conflict, along with visits between Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

China is also a major buyer of Russian oil and gas, providing a lifeline for Moscow’s war economy that is under international sanctions. Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, China and Russia signed an agreement pledging unlimited friendship. China has refused to refer to the invasion as such and has blamed NATO for provoking Russian President Vladimir Putin.

There was no immediate Chinese reaction to Burns’ comments, which came during a seminar on Sino-US relations focused on the life of Henry Kissinger, a career diplomat who died last year.

In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Burns also criticized Beijing for undermining people-to-people cultural and educational exchanges by interrogating and intimidating citizens attending U.S.-hosted events in China, increasing restrictions on the publications of the embassy on social media and whip up anti-American sentiment.

His comments prompted a rebuke from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

“It is the United States, not China, that has disrupted and impeded cultural and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Wednesday. “The United States has used national security as a false pretext to harass, interrogate and deport Chinese students arriving in the United States. These measures caused enormous damage to the people affected. “They have created a chilling effect.”

In Washington, the State Department “absolutely” agreed with “everything the ambassador said” in the interview, spokesman Matthew Miller said.

“It is very difficult” to improve people-to-people relations “when the Chinese government harasses American citizens who are in China or Chinese citizens who are participating in… or attempting to participate in American programs,” Miller said.

In the past, the State Department said it welcomed Chinese students, and that said less than “one tenth of 1%” of them have been detained or denied admission.

Relations between Washington and Beijing also remain strained over trade, territorial disputes and Taiwan’s autonomous island democracy. The United States maintains close political and military relations with Taiwan despite its lack of formal diplomatic ties out of deference to Beijing.

China claims the island as its own territory that can be annexed by force if necessary. In recent days he has threatened to persecute the “unconditional” supporters of the island’s continued independence and condemn them to death. There was no indication of how he intended to act in the face of the threat.