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Russian police detains thousands of Navalny supporters during protests from Moscow to Vladivostok
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https://scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3120119/antony-blinken-criticises-russia-china-interview United States & Canada
Antony Blinken criticises China and Russia in interview, weighs new sanctions against North Korea
- The US Secretary of State took issue with Beijing’s actions in Hong Kong, and said the US should accept people fleeing the crackdown in the city
- Blinken also told NBC News he was ‘deeply disturbed by the violent crackdown’ on Russian protesters supporting opposition leader Navalny
A protester displays a placard to support democracy advocate Jimmy Lai outside Hong Kong‘s Court of Final Appeal. Photo: AP
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken sharply criticised China over its actions in Hong Kong, saying it acted “egregiously” to undermine the city, and that the US should accept people fleeing the crackdown there.
“If they’re the victims of repression from Chinese authorities, we should do something to give them haven,” he said in an interview with NBC News.
In addition, he took issue with China’s lack of transparency with regard to the Covid-19 pandemic as a “profound problem”, saying Beijing is falling far short in allowing experts access to the sites where the coronavirus was discovered.
Blinken also said in the interview that he was “deeply disturbed by the violent crackdown” on Russian protesters on Sunday and arrests across the country of people demanding the release of Navalny, a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. More than 5,300 people were detained in a massive show of force.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Moscow would ignore Blinken’s comments and warned Washington against imposing any new sanctions.
“The Russian government makes a big mistake if it believes that this is about us,” Blinken said in the interview. “It’s about them. It’s about the government. It’s about the frustration that the Russian people have with corruption, with autocracy, and I think they need to look inward, not outward.”
Blinken did not commit to specific sanctions against Moscow in the interview, taped on Sunday.
He said he was reviewing a response to the actions against Navalny, as well as Russian election interference in 2020, the SolarWinds hack and alleged bounties for US soldiers in Afghanistan.
“The president could not have been clearer in his conversation with President Putin,” Blinken said of President Joe Biden’s telephone call last week with the Russian leader.
Blinken warned Iran was months away from the ability to produce the fissile material needed for a nuclear weapon.
He told NBC it could be only “a matter of weeks” if Iran continues to lift restraints in the 2015 nuclear deal that the US pulled out of under President Donald Trump.
On North Korea, Blinken said additional sanctions could be used in coordination with US allies as a way toward denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. Other tools include unspecified diplomatic incentives, he said.