Chinese calculations on Taiwan affected by Ukraine conflict, says CIA director
(Reuters) -U.S. Central Intelligence Company Director William Burns mentioned on Saturday that China is carefully monitoring Russia’s battle in Ukraine and that it’s affecting Chinese language leaders’ calculations over Taiwan, the self-ruled island claimed by Beijing.
Burns, talking at a Monetary Occasions occasion in Washington, mentioned the Chinese language authorities had been struck by Ukraine’s fierce resistance to Russia’s invasion and by the financial prices Russia is bearing.
“I feel the Chinese language management is wanting very fastidiously in any respect this – on the prices and penalties of any effort to make use of drive to achieve management over Taiwan,” Burns mentioned.
He cautioned, nonetheless, that it will not shift Chinese language chief Xi Jinping’s long-term objectives over Taiwan.
“I do not for a minute suppose that this has eroded Xi’s dedication over time to achieve management over Taiwan,” mentioned Burns. “However I feel it is one thing that is affecting their calculation about how and once they go about doing that.”
China has refused to sentence Russia’s battle in Ukraine and has criticized Western sanctions on Moscow.
Beijing and Moscow declared a “no-limits” strategic partnership a number of weeks earlier than the Feb. 24 invasion, and have been forging nearer power and safety ties lately to push again on the US and the West.
However Burns mentioned the US believed China was unsettled by the reputational injury of being related to the “brutishness” of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s navy motion.
“I feel what the bitter expertise, in some ways, of Putin’s Russia in Ukraine during the last 10 or 11 weeks has completed is display that that friendship truly does have some limits,” Burns mentioned.
(Reporting by Michael Martina and Christopher Bing in WashingtonEditing by Daniel Wallis and Matthew Lewis)
