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QUESTION: Thank you. So you’ve been talking about – with increasing concern about the Chinese support for Russian military-industrial base. And so have you warned the Chinese against doing that like you did a while ago with – when it comes to lethal aid, or are you planning any actions to address that?
And separately, if I may, Polish President Duda said today that he will meet with former President Trump. That’s obviously another meeting after David Cameron met with him, and then the Ukrainians expressed interest in that. Are you concerned at all about these meetings, that there might be some shadow diplomacy or something like that?
MR MILLER: I don’t have any comment on those meetings, other than to say that we have seen over the course of years of American elections where foreign governments engage with the nominees of major parties here, just as American diplomats and American leaders often engage with foreign opposition leaders. The Secretary has regularly engaged with the opposition leader in Israel. He met with the opposition leader from the United Kingdom when he was in Munich in February. So that’s something that has happened over decades between governments of various parties in the United States and in other countries.
With respect to your first question, remind me?
QUESTION: Chinese.
MR MILLER: Oh, with China. So we have long made clear to the People’s Republic of China that we would have concern with any actions that they took to support Russia’s war in Ukraine, and that did not include – that doesn’t – that doesn’t have to just be direct military support, but that we would be incredibly concerned about them – about any steps taken by Chinese companies to reconstitute Russia’s defense industrial base. And so what we have seen over the past months is that there have been materials moving from China to Russia that Russia has used to rebuild that re-industrial[2] base and produce arms that are showing up on the battlefield in Ukraine, and we are incredibly concerned about that. And you saw the Secretary engage with NATO foreign ministers about that week before last. It will certainly be on the agenda when he travels to the G7 tomorrow to meet with G7 partner countries.
And then the only thing I will say further about that is the Secretary does plan to travel to China in the coming weeks, and you can certainly – without getting too far ahead of those meetings, you can certainly expect that that is an issue that he would be expected to raise.
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Source: U.S. Department of State
Speaker: Matthew Miller, Department Spokesperson
Format: Press Briefing
China Policy Research 