US security adviser says hard line on Russia is needed to dissuade China from similar moves
- National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says an unchallenged invasion of Ukraine would embolden ‘other would-be aggressors, like China’
- Speaking at a think tank conference, Sullivan says his recent meeting with top Chinese diplomat covered Ukraine, Taiwan and North Korea
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Thursday that the US was standing firm against Russia and its invasion of Ukraine to dissuade “would-be aggressors” like China from taking similar actions.
“If the United States let [Russia’s invasion of Ukraine] stand without challenge or check, it would send a message to other would-be aggressors, including China, that they could do the same thing,” Sullivan said.
“And then all of a sudden you’re looking at major countries with significant militaries taking territory, and in doing so, destabilising not just the … rules-based international order but the global economy in really profound and fundamental ways that ended up hurting everyday people here in the United States,” he added.
Sullivan’s remarks, which placed China at the centre of US thinking behind its backing of Ukraine, came during a speech at the three-day virtual conference on national security hosted by the Centre for a New American Security (CNAS).
Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a senior fellow and director of the transatlantic security programme at CNAS, said in a separate discussion on Thursday that Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin have spent more time together than most pairs of world leaders, making them inclined to support each other’s policies.
“They both share an intent to undermine US power and influence,” she said. “I think they both share of fear of democracy, and they believe that the US weaponises [democracy] to spread America’s own influence and to undermine their own regimes in their respective countries.”
“We have not seen China move forward with any form of direct military assistance to Ukraine, and we’ve not seen them undertake systematic efforts to help the Russians evade the sanctions and export controls,” Sullivan said on Thursday.
“They’re taking a very careful approach to this. And on the issues that we have pressed them particularly hard on – the provision of assistance, the evasion of sanctions – we believe that China has not taken steps that cross those lines,” he added.
Beijing has repeatedly said that it has not provided military assistance to Moscow, and its embassy in Washington claimed in response to Sullivan’s comments on Thursday that it “supports all efforts that are conducive to easing the situation and political settlement”.
“China opposes actions like fanning the flame or adding fuel to the fire that may escalate the situation and are counterproductive to political resolution,” the embassy’s spokesman Liu Pengyu said. “China has never invaded other countries or sent a single soldier abroad.”
Sullivan also said his discussion with Yang included China’s veto of a UN Security Council resolution sanctioning North Korea, and the Taiwan Strait where, he said, Beijing was “increasingly engaged in activities that are threatening peace and stability” – an accusation Beijing has also made against Washington.
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China says ‘no limits’ in cooperation with Russia
He was referring to the Shanghai Communique of 1972, in which “the United States acknowledges that Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China”.
“I don’t regard that as a bug in our Taiwan policy, but rather as a feature. And it is a feature that has actually served us relatively well in terms of managing a difficult relationship and maintaining peace and stability across the strait.”
Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province to be reunified with the mainland eventually, by force if necessary. Liu reiterated that position in response to Sullivan’s comments.
“Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory and the government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China,” he said. “This is a consensus of the international community and a political commitment made by the US to China. The Taiwan question is purely China’s internal affair that brooks no foreign interference.”
The Taiwan Relations Act was signed by president Jimmy Carter shortly after Washington switched official diplomatic relations from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, and authorises the US government to support Taiwan’s defence capabilities.
The communiques are agreements between the US and China that formalised the diplomatic switch and allowed “cultural, commercial and other unofficial relations” between America and Taiwan. The “six assurances” refer to commitments Washington made to Taipei in 1982 to disregard Beijing’s opposition to US arms sales to the island.
China is getting ‘more coercive’ in its territorial claims: US defence chief
These tensions were on full display at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in the days before Yang and Sullivan spoke.
Beijing has also been angered by remarks by Biden, on more than one occasion, that the US would intervene if Taiwan was attacked, despite the White House’s repeated statements that there has been no change in policy.
