Blinken presses chief Chinese diplomat on the war in Ukraine

The battle in Ukraine shifted to a geopolitical front Saturday as Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with the Chinese foreign minister at the end of a Group of 20 summit in Indonesia, pressing him to change positions and join the United States and partners to “stand up” against Russia's war, while also trying to ease overall tensions with Beijing.

It was a change of tone for the Biden administration, which just over a week ago pushed for a NATO blueprint, released during a summit in Madrid, to include a sharp rebuke of China, labeling its policies “coercive,” its cyberoperations “malicious” and its rhetoric “confrontational.”

The Biden administration's softer approach at the Group of 20 meeting reflected its conflicting foreign policy goals. As it works to shore up alliances with its Asian allies to constrain China, it is also trying to assemble a global effort to punish Moscow for its aggression in Ukraine — an effort that has little chance of success without cooperation from China, but also from countries like India, Brazil and Saudi Arabia. During the five-hour meeting, held on the Indonesian resort island of Bali one day after the summit of G-20 foreign ministers, Blinken emphasized issues of shared interest with Beijing, including climate change and global health, while stressing the U.S.' concern with China's alignment with Russia.

Speaking to reporters afterward, Blinken dismissed China's claims to be neutral in the Ukraine war as implausible. “I tried to convey to the state councilor that this really is a moment where we all have to stand up” to condemn Russian aggression, Blinken said, using the formal title for China's foreign minister, Wang Yi. “There's a clear aggressor. There's a clear victim.”

Wang responded sharply to Blinken's statements, urging the U.S. to refrain from attacking China's political system and recycling Cold War-era strategies of containment, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry statement. He also called on Washington to remove tariffs on Chinese products and to stop imposing sanctions on Chinese companies.