US security concerns justify continuing sanctions against Russia over war, says senior Biden aide

Main causes for growing Sino-Russian relationship are Kremlin’s decision to invade Ukraine and ‘China’s choice to enable Putin’s war’, official adds

No-limits partnership described as ‘increasingly without symmetry’ in that Moscow now ‘is utterly reliant’ on Beijing for trade

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Daleep Singh serves the Biden administration as the US deputy national security adviser for international economics. Photo: Reuters

Published: 5:30am, 29 May 2024Updated: 5:40am, 29 May 2024

A White House official on Tuesday pushed back against criticism that US sanctions and export controls on Russia have driven the country closer to China, saying Washington and its partners were prepared to keep using the economic tools to prevent trade that threatens their security.

Daleep Singh, the US deputy national security adviser for international economics, said the primary causes for the growing relationship between the world’s two biggest non-Western powers were “Russia’s decision to invade and terrorise Ukraine and China’s choice to enable [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s war”.

Western sanctions in response to the war have blocked Russia’s access to global pools of capital and cutting-edge technology, said Singh, a key architect of the sanctions, in remarks at Washington-based think tank Brookings Institution.

“Now it is utterly reliant on China, giving Beijing enormous leverage over Russia’s ability to project power and to exert influence,” he said of the Kremlin, adding that most of its imported semiconductors and microelectronics last year were shipped via China.

Singh’s remarks came a month after US President Joe Biden signed a bill into law to give billions of dollars of new aid to Ukraine for its war with Russia, a rare bipartisan victory after Republicans in Congress blocked military help for Kyiv for months.

The Biden administration has designated more than 4,000 entities and individuals under Russia-related sanctions authorities as of February, according to the US Treasury Department.

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