Chinese leader Xi Jinping said he was against the “politicization, instrumentalization and use of food and energy issues as weapons” during the G20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia, on Tuesday (15).
The speech is seen as a thinly veiled warning to Russia, and echoes criticism from several governments that the country’s president, Vladimir Putin, would have interrupted the supply of gas to Europe and paralyzed the export of grain as a way of penalizing the West for its support for Kiev, invaded by Moscow nearly nine months ago.
Xi’s statement comes in a context where the West is increasingly pressing the Asian country for a more emphatic position on the Ukraine War. It comes just a day after the Chinese met with his American counterpart, Joe Biden, in parallel to the G20 – this was the first face-to-face meeting between the two since the Democrat’s election two years ago.
Among the fruits of the dialogue, which sought to alleviate tensions between the two largest global economies, was the reiteration that a nuclear war must never be fought. It is another reference to Putin, who has been making a series of threats in this regard since the escalation of the Ukrainian War in September.
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