MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia is not worried about potential U.S. attempts to influence China’s policy towards Moscow, the Kremlin said on Tuesday, commenting on U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s visit to Beijing where he held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
During a rare visit to Beijing by Blinken, China and the United States agreed on Monday to stabilise their intense rivalry so it did not veer into conflict, but failed to produce any major breakthrough.
Blinken said however that he had asked the Chinese government to be very vigilant about the possibility that Chinese firms may be providing Russia with technology that it could use in its war in Ukraine, something Moscow calls a “special military operation.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Beijing had the sovereign right to forge ties with other countries and that the process of trying to build predictable relations between China and the United States was an important one.
Russia did not think there was a risk of U.S.-China talks causing problems for Moscow, he said.
“Our strategic partnership relationship with China make us confident that (Beijing’s) development of relations with other countries will never be aimed against our country,” Peskov said.
Hit with sanctions by the United States and the European Union over Ukraine, Russia has sought in Beijing a market for its energy exports and a partnership in a global anti-Western axis that would challenge the existing world order.
Xi visited Russia in March, pledging friendship, but maintaining an “impartial position” on the Ukraine conflict. A peace plan proposed by Beijing has so far produced no breakthrough.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
