China-US relations: American state department official explains how Beijing risks crossing ‘red line’ with Russia

Name: US Treasury chief Janet Yellen leaves China after ‘difficult conversations’, overcapacity gripes
Uploaded: 2024-04-10T03:00:38.000Z
Duration: 2 min 22 s
Description: US Treasury chief Janet Yellen leaves China after ‘difficult conversations’, overcapacity gripes

Kurt Campbell, No 2 at US State Department, echoes Beijing’s language of ‘red line’ and ‘core interest’ to mark out Washington’s strategic interest

‘We will not sit by and say everything is fine … if Russia’s offences continue and they gain territory in Ukraine, that will alter the balance of power in Europe’

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Kurt Campbell during a US Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on his nomination to be Deputy Secretary of State on December 7, 2023, in Washington. Photo: AP

Robert Delaneyin Washington

Published: 11:00am, 10 Apr 2024Updated: 12:55pm, 10 Apr 2024

China’s closer ties with Russia risk crossing a line as sensitive to Washington as Taiwan is to Beijing, a senior member of US President Joe Biden’s administration suggested on Tuesday.

Asked about Chinese President Xi Jinping’s meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov earlier in the day, deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell first cited the “red line” and “core interest” that his department’s officials often hear about from Chinese counterparts.

“For the United States … our most important mission, historically, has been the maintenance of peace and stability in Europe,” Campbell said. “The point that we’re trying to make to Chinese interlocutors is that this is our strategic interest. This is the most central issue, and China is involving themselves in a way that they think that we don’t completely understand.”

Assurances that Washington does not support independence for the self-ruled island are a regular fixture in high-level dialogue with Beijing. In his first meeting with Biden after the US leader entered the White House in 2021, Xi labelled the “Taiwan issue” the “first red line that must not be crossed” in bilateral relations.

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US Treasury chief Janet Yellen leaves China after ‘difficult conversations’, overcapacity gripes

Beijing sees Taiwan as a part of China that will eventually be reunited, by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington opposes any attempt to take the island by force and remains committed to supplying it with weapons.

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