By Joe Cash
BEIJING (Reuters) – China said on Monday the United States was not in a position to make demands after the top U.S. diplomat warned his Chinese counterpart at the weekend against China supplying Russia with weapons in its war. in Ukraine.
“The US is not in a position to make demands of China,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a daily briefing in Beijing when asked about US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s comments.
Wang Wenbin was speaking as Beijing’s top diplomat Wang Yi was expected to arrive in Moscow days after he met Blinken on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich.
“China’s comprehensive collaborative partnership with Russia is based on non-alignment, non-confrontation and non-direction of third parties, and is an issue within the sovereignty of two independent countries,” said Wang Wenbin.
He was referring to the “no limits” partnership agreed a little over a year ago between Beijing and Moscow, weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We will never accept the US pointing fingers at Sino-Russian relations or even coercing us,” Wang Wenbin said at the briefing in Beijing.
Ties between the United States and China were further strained this month after the U.S. military shot down what it said was a Chinese spy balloon over the United States. China says the balloon was a civilian research craft that was accidentally blown off course by the wind, calling the US response an overreaction.
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