China’s foreign minister Wang Yi has hit back at Nato’s “groundless accusations” that Beijing is helping Russia in its war on Ukraine.
He has also warned the Western alliance against stirring up confrontation.
Mr Wang’s comments, made in a call with his Dutch counterpart, came hours after leaders of Nato member states gathered in Washington DC and issued a declaration that mentioned the war.
They accused China of being a “decisive enabler” of Russia through its “large-scale support for Russia’s defence industrial base”, in some of their harshest remarks yet about Beijing.
They called on China to stop “all material and political support” to Russia’s war effort such as the supply of dual-use materials, which are items that can be used for both civilian and military purposes.
Western states have previously accused Beijing of transferring drone and missile technology and satellite imagery to Moscow. The US estimates about 70% of the machine tools and 90% of the microelectronics Russia imports now come from China.
Beijing was also accused of conducting “malicious cyber and hybrid activities, including disinformation” on Nato states.
In a press conference on Thursday, US President Joe Biden said that he had discussions with other leaders about spelling out the consequences for China.
“China has to understand that if they are supplying Russia with information and capacity, working with North Korea and others to help Russia and [their] armament, that they’re not going to benefit economically as a consequence of that,” he said.
“I think you’ll see that some of our European friends are going to be curtailing their investment in China.”
Pointing out that Russia had been seeking weapons from China and North Korea, he added that Nato states were looking into a new policy to turn the West into an “industrial base” for munitions and to develop new weapons systems.
Source BBC
