Beijing’s leadership is determined to back Moscow “to the hilt,” says State Department No. 2 Kurt Campbell.
The U.S. is stepping up diplomatic efforts to convince Europe about the scale of China’s role in aiding Russia’s war against Ukraine.
And according to the second most senior figure in the U.S. State Department, Europe is now hardening its stance on Beijing.
Kurt Campbell — the deputy secretary of state who until recently served as U.S. President Joe Biden’s “Indo-Pacific czar” — this week hand-delivered that warning to European diplomats in NATO with “as much detail and specifics as possible.” His visit came ahead of a big NATO leaders’ summit in Washington in July at which the alliance is expected to send a serious message to Beijing.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
BRUSSELS — The U.S. is stepping up diplomatic efforts to convince Europe about the scale of China’s role in aiding Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Kurt Campbell — the deputy secretary of state who until recently served as U.S. President Joe Biden’s “Indo-Pacific czar” — this week hand-delivered that warning to European diplomats in NATO with “as much detail and specifics as possible.”
“It is fair to say that China’s general goal has been not only to support Russia — in our view, to the hilt — but to downplay that publicly and try to maintain normal diplomatic and commercial ties with Europe,” Campbell told a small group of media outlets including POLITICO during a visit to Brussels on Wednesday.
European firms — from German auto giants to French cognac-makers — have been appealing to their countries not to go down the path of a trade war with China, for fear of losing market access should the Chinese authorities take punitive action in retaliation.
Campbell cited China’s economic uncertainties as a reason Beijing might not retaliate against Europe — if tariffs are imposed — as rigorously as it had in the past.
“In the current environment, I think China is aware of some of the vulnerabilities of its own economy, and so it has been wary to undertake some of the full-scale efforts [of] retaliation that we’ve seen in previous periods against Australia, South Korea, Philippines and others,” he said.
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