Nuland Wants China to Talk Russia Out of Escalation So US Can Go Back to Focusing on China

Editor’s note: Nuland is a geopolitical genius. If only America’s targets can police each other for Washington then everything will go swimmingly. If China contains Russia then the US can go back to containing China.

Nuland also says war would detract from building back better. Is she trying to make us pro-war?

The United States on Thursday called on China to use its influence with Russia to urge a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis, but policy experts doubted Beijing would back Washington in the standoff.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke by phone with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Beijing said it wanted all sides to remain calm and “refrain from doing things that agitate tensions and hype up the crisis.”

Blinken stressed that tensions should be reduced and warned of the security and economic risks from any Russian aggression, the State Department said.

U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said U.S. messages to Beijing had been very clear.

“We are calling on Beijing to use its influence with Moscow to urge diplomacy, because if there is a conflict in the Ukraine it is not going to be good for China either,” Nuland said at a regular State Department news conference. “There will be a significant impact on the global economy. There will be a significant impact in the energy sphere.”

The United States called on China to use its influence with Russia to urge a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis https://t.co/EJUb4q7c4C pic.twitter.com/4W1rzWFloH

— Reuters (@Reuters) January 27, 2022

China’s U.N. ambassador Zhang Jun said a “time-honored Olympic Truce” for the Beijing Winter Games that begin on Feb. 4 would start from Jan. 28.

“Let’s take this opportunity to promote peace, solidarity, cooperation, and other common values shared by all humanity, to make our world a better place,” Zhang tweeted.

Daniel Russel, the senior U.S. diplomat for Asia under former President Barack Obama, said that while China could not be happy about the possibility of an invasion of Ukraine on the eve of the Olympics, “Wang Yi chose to defend Russia’s ‘legitimate security concerns’ rather than offer any support to Blinken.”

Bonnie Glaser of the German Marshall Fund of the United States said Beijing could act as a spoiler to any attempts by the United States and its allies to impose costs on Russia.

“It is unlikely that the U.S. can get China on board over Ukraine. Beijing won’t endorse use of force, but it is sympathetic with Russian views of NATO. And this is not just about the Olympics,” Glaser said.

If the United States and the European Union imposed sanctions on Russia, “China is likely to take steps to mitigate their impact,” she said.

Wang, apparently referring to NATO’s expansion in eastern Europe, told Blinken that one country’s security could not be at the expense of others and regional security could not be guaranteed by strengthening or even expanding military blocs, his ministry said.

Wang said the new Minsk agreement was “a fundamental political document recognized by all parties and should be effectively implemented.” China will support efforts made in line with the “direction and spirit of the agreement,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to visit China next week for the Winter Olympics.

Wang underscored the cool state of Beijing’s ties with Washington, saying that the United States “continues to make mistakes in its words and deeds on China, causing new shocks to the relationship”.

“The top priority at the moment is that the U.S. should stop interfering with the Beijing Winter Olympics, stop playing with fire on the Taiwan issue, and stop creating various anti-China cliques,” he said.

The United States, Canada, Australia and Britain have said they will not send any state officials to the Games because of China’s human rights record. China denies rights abuses and had rejected what it calls the politicization of sport.

Source: Reuters

Kofman:

The United States is materially constrained, seeking to focus on the Indo-Pacific and redress a deteriorating military balance vis-à-vis China. Washington’s dream of making the Russia relationship more predictable via a narrow strategic stability agenda appears to be dissipating. The United States will have to manage China and Russia, at the same time, for the foreseeable future. For U.S. strategy, it was never going to be China only, but it will prove exceedingly difficult to make it China mostly — not as long as Russia gets a vote.