Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on Monday said that the visit to Moscow by China’s president days after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, amounts to Beijing providing “diplomatic cover for Russia to continue to commit” war crimes. President Xi Jinping’s visit “suggests that China feels […]
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NEW DELHI — When the top diplomats of four major Asia-Pacific nations met here in the Indian capital on Friday to discuss issues in the region, one had a direct message for the behemoth whose shadow loomed over the talk. China must “act under the international institutions, standards and laws” to avoid conflict, Yoshimasa Hayashi, […]
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Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and his Russian counterpart on Thursday held the first private, face-to-face exchange between a U.S. cabinet member and a top Kremlin official since the invasion, and Mr. Blinken said he used the encounter to demand that Russia end its war on Ukraine. The unscheduled encounter with Sergey V. Lavrov, […]
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Ukraine is sending reinforcements to the devastated eastern city of Bakhmut, leading more troops into a bloody crucible that has already cost both sides staggering losses, where Russian forces have gradually tightened their grip. A Ukrainian deputy defense minister, Hanna Maliar, said Wednesday that her government had begun deploying new fighters to Bakhmut, site of […]
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ASTANA, Kazakhstan — Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken came to Central Asia to press his case that the region should hold the line against Russian efforts to seek economic aid as Moscow grapples with Western sanctions. Within hours of landing in Astana, the snow-draped capital of Kazakhstan, he received a sign that the United […]
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A week after President Biden traveled to Ukraine to pledge American support in the fight to repel Russia, he has dispatched two senior cabinet members to redouble efforts to prop up the Ukrainian economy and to try to curb the Kremlin’s ability to skirt Western sanctions. The visits, by Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen to […]
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Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken is flying on Tuesday into the heart of what Moscow considers its sphere of influence to urge senior Central Asian officials convening in Kazakhstan to maintain independence from Russia and China. The meetings come at a critical juncture in American efforts to head off Moscow’s global efforts to seek […]
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KYIV, Ukraine — President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine marked the anniversary of the Russian invasion on Friday with a show of defiance, as anti-Kremlin protests took place around the world and the United States made a significant commitment of new weaponry to the country. Even as he and his allies braced for a prolonged war, Mr. […]
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WASHINGTON — A year ago, the United States did something extraordinary — it released previously classified intelligence that exposed Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine. Last week, Antony J. Blinken, the secretary of state, made a similar move when he warned China’s top foreign policy official, Wang Yi, against providing weapons to Russia. In a previous […]
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WARSAW — President Biden and Vladimir V. Putin laid out radically different visions on Tuesday for Ukraine’s future, offering sharply contrasting narratives about who is to blame for the bloody, yearlong war and seeming to agree on only one point: The conflict is nowhere near an end. Mr. Biden repeatedly blamed Mr. Putin, the president […]
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China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, has been on a high-stakes tour of Europe, defending his country’s interests in a clash with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and reaffirming Beijing’s friendship with Russia with a visit to Moscow. But China is also trying to woo European nations in an urgent bid to revive its economy […]
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The reasons are numerous. First, there is virtually no communication between the two countries. The “strategic stability talks” that Mr. Biden and Mr. Putin agreed upon in June 2021, at their only face-to-face meeting as presidents, were suspended after the invasion of Ukraine. Second, trust between the two countries is virtually nonexistent. Mr. Putin and […]
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ANKARA — When Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken first planned a trip to Turkey, it promised to be a difficult, even contentious diplomatic visit. Washington and Ankara have been at odds on several important issues, including Turkey’s ties to Russia, its refusal to allow Sweden and Finland to join NATO and the authoritarian drift […]
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MADRID — When the top foreign policy officials from the United States and China appeared this weekend at Europe’s premier global security conference, both stressed that their governments were not seeking a new Cold War. Yet, new warnings by U.S. officials that China may be preparing to give weapons and ammunition to Russia for its […]
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Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken held what American officials described as a confrontational meeting with his Chinese counterpart on Saturday night in Munich, warning him that the flight of a Chinese surveillance balloon across the United States “must never happen again.” He also cautioned Beijing against providing “material support” to Russia’s war in Ukraine, […]
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Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met with China’s top foreign policy official on Saturday night in Munich, a State Department official said, a resumption of diplomacy between Washington and Beijing after a breakdown that followed the Biden administration’s downing of a Chinese spy balloon over U.S. territory. The impromptu meeting happened while the two […]
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China’s top foreign policy official on Saturday mocked America’s response to a recent Chinese spy balloon overflight, calling the U.S. actions “absurd and hysterical” and an effort “to divert attention from its domestic problems.” The official, Wang Yi, the Chinese Communist Party’s senior member for foreign affairs, repeated his government’s claim that the balloon, which […]
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MUNICH — Nearly one year into the brutal and costly war in Ukraine, Western leaders pledged to remain steadfast in their support for Kyiv amid worries about whether their unity can survive what France’s president called “a prolonged conflict.” As dozens of leaders convened in Germany, Ukraine’s president opened the annual Munich Security Conference with […]
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KYIV, Ukraine — Moscow unleashed a new missile bombardment on cities across Ukraine before dawn on Thursday, killing a 79-year-old woman and once again targeting critical infrastructure. Russian forces, firing from land, sea and air, launched what the Ukrainian air force put at almost three dozen cruise missiles, as well as repurposed missiles designed to […]
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Other murky actions have challenged U.S. analysts trying to read Chinese intentions. On Jan. 28, when the balloon approached the Aleutian Islands and American airspace over Alaska in its off-course trajectory, the balloon’s self-destruct function did not activate, U.S. officials said. Chinese operators may not have wanted to destroy the balloon; it is also possible […]
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The Chinese diplomat behind the window at the visa office called me and the other journalists up to the desk, one by one, to hand us our passports. I flipped through mine until I saw the entry visa for China, good for four days. It seemed an auspicious way to kick off the Year of […]
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Compared with the unease from Chinese fighter jets racing over the Taiwan Strait or naval standoffs in the South China Sea, the giant Chinese balloon floating over the United States last week looked to many in Asia like a puffy trifle. But as American officials continue to press the issue, asserting that Chinese spy balloons […]
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Now, as some smaller states — particularly those the United States describes as allies and partners — confront this new potential threat of surveillance, their options may be limited. What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can […]
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WASHINGTON — When President Biden delivered his State of the Union address a year ago, war had broken out in Europe just days before and it appeared inevitable that Vladimir V. Putin would quickly take control of Ukraine. China, the Pentagon kept repeating, was America’s “pacing” challenge, a long-term technological and financial competitor, but not […]
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On Chinese social media, jokes about the suspected spy balloon have been making the rounds. People quipped that the vessel was a misunderstood attempt at wishing Americans a happy Lantern Festival, the Chinese holiday this past Sunday. Others compared it to a glutinous rice ball, a traditional food eaten during the celebrations. The wisecracking was, […]
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WASHINGTON — The top military commander overseeing North American airspace said Monday that some previous incursions by Chinese spy balloons during the Trump administration were not detected in real time, and the Pentagon learned of them only later. “I will tell you that we did not detect those threats, and that’s a domain awareness gap,” […]
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The Chinese balloon that bumbled its way across the United States has launched a thousand questions about its real intent. But it is also focusing the world’s attention on the prospect that the communications and control within Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government and his vaunted security apparatus may be less coherent — or even less […]
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Of course, there is nothing new about superpowers spying on one another, even from balloons. President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized surveillance of the Soviet Union by lofting cameras on balloons in the mid-1950s, flying them “over Soviet bloc countries under the guise of meteorological research,” according to an article published by the National Archives in […]
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After an American fighter jet shot down the Chinese balloon that had floated across the United States, the reaction from Beijing — defensive, angered, yet hedging its options — illustrated the challenges facing China’s leader, Xi Jinping, as he tries to stabilize relations while giving little, if any, ground. Hours after the balloon was struck […]
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After years of deepening mistrust and simmering tensions, ties between the United States and China appeared poised for a modest rebound following the meeting of the two nations’ leaders at a summit last November and recent efforts by Beijing to stabilize its relations with the world. A visit by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken […]
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WASHINGTON — American military officials on Thursday said they had detected a “high-altitude surveillance balloon” launched by China floating in the skies of Montana, causing a diplomatic panic that led Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken to postpone a planned trip to Beijing. On Friday, Chinese officials declared that the floating orb was a “mainly […]
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