BRUSSELS: The United States on Wednesday warned that Beijing could face further sanctions for supporting Russia.
European and NATO countries urgently needed “to send a collective message of concern to China about its actions, which we view are destabilizing in the heart of Europe,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell told reporters during a visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels.
The Biden administration has been stepping up warnings about China’s support for Russia. In December, it issued an executive order allowing sanctions on financial institutions helping Russia skirt Western sanctions.
NATO Briefed
Campbell said he had briefed NATO’s main political decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council, about U.S. concerns on Tuesday.
Chinese support was helping Moscow reconstitute elements of its military, he said. These included long-range missile, artillery and drone capabilities, and its ability to track battlefield movements.
“What we’ve seen from China to Russia is not a one-off or a couple of rogue firms involved in supporting Russia,” Campbell said.
‘Utmost Urgency’
“This is a sustained, comprehensive effort that is backed up by the leadership in China that is designed to give Russia every support behind the scenes.”
Campbell said this had created capacities for Russia not only on the battlefield in Ukraine, but posed “a strategic challenge to others in Europe.”
“We see this as a matter of utmost urgency,” he said.
In response to China’s actions Europe and the United States had already imposed “sanctions in certain cases,” he said. “I would expect that the United States and countries in NATO will take subsequent steps.”
Declining to elaborate on what those steps could be, he said: “I think the view is that we will need to send a clear, unambiguous signal to Beijing that such steps that China is undertaking are dangerous to the long-term stability in Europe.”
Last month, the U.S. imposed sanctions on 20 companies based in China and Hong Kong, following repeated warnings from Washington about China’s support for Russia’s military.
China’s embassy in Washington said Beijing oversees the export of dual-use articles in accordance with international laws and regulations. It added that WTO rules and market principles guided trade and economic interactions between China and Russia.
On Tuesday, Daleep Singh, the White House Deputy National Security Adviser for International Economics, said the U.S. and its partners were prepared to use sanctions.
They were also prepared to use export controls to prevent China-Russia trade that threatens their security amid the Ukraine war.
In a speech in Berlin on Friday, U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo is expected to call for further action to stem Russia’s sanctions evasion. He is also likely to deliver a warning on China’s role, highlighting the December executive order.
In April, a U.S. official told Reuters that Washington had discussed sanctions on some Chinese banks. However, it did not yet have a plan to implement such measures.
(REUTERS)
