“There’s disinformation about China providing military assistance to Russia,” Qin said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. China isn’t sending “weapons and ammunitions to any party,” he said. “We will do everything to disescalate the crisis.”
At the same time, he said, “China has normal trade, economic, financial, energy cooperation with Russia.” This is “normal business between two sovereign countries,” he said.
While China has “a lot of common interests” with Russia, that “is not a liability,” Qin said. “China is part of the solution, it’s not part of the problem.” He cited Xi’s phone call with Putin shortly after the Russian invasion in February during which China said its leader urged Putin to negotiate with Ukraine.
Asked whether China would condemn the Russian invasion, Qin said, “Don’t be naive, condemnation doesn’t solve the problem. I would be surprised if Russia will back down by condemnation.” Instead, China will continue to urge peace talks, he said.
The conversation between Xi and Biden was “candid, deep and constructive,” Qin said. Earlier, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield described the call as “extraordinarily frank.”
“And we made our position clear to the Chinese,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “They’re in an uncomfortable position.”
