Blinken, Wang meet in bid to calm tension
Nusa Dua (Indonesia), July 9
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met his Chinese counterpart on Saturday in a new effort to try to rein in or at least manage rampant hostility that has come to define recent relations between Washington and Beijing that are now complicated by the war in Ukraine.
Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held five hours of talks in the Indonesian resort of Bali, a day after they both attended a gathering of top diplomats from the Group of 20 rich and large developing countries that ended without a joint call to end Russia’s war in Ukraine or plan for how to deal with its impacts on food and energy security.
However, Blinken said he believed Russia had come out of the G20 meeting isolated and alone as most participants expressed opposition to the Ukraine war. However, the ministers were unable to come to a unified G20 call for an end to the conflict.
“There was a strong consensus and Russia was left isolated,” Blinken said of individual condemnations of Russia’s actions from various ministers, some of whom shunned conversations with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
He noted that Lavrov had left the meeting early, possibly because he didn’t like what he was hearing from his counterparts. “It was very important that he heard loudly and clearly from around the world condemnation of Russia’s aggression,” Blinken said. — AP
