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Blinken to hold talks with Chinese counterpart amid worries about China's drone assistance to Russia

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Blinken to hold talks with Chinese counterpart amid worries about China's drone assistance to Russia
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at an event to release the State Department's 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report on June 24, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Sept. 27 during the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

This meeting between the top diplomats of both countries comes in response to increasing U.S. concerns regarding Chinese companies supplying chips and drones to Moscow, significantly enhancing Russia's military capabilities in its ongoing war against Ukraine.

Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell has informed Congress that China's material support for Russia's war effort "comes from the very top," the Voice of America (VOA) reported.

Blinken's discussions with Wang will occur before a scheduled call between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, anticipated later this fall.

Earlier this week, President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the U.N. General Assembly, asserting that Ukraine would never accept a deal imposed by other nations to conclude Russia’s 31-month invasion, and questioned the intentions of China and Brazil in advocating for negotiations with Moscow.

For months, U.S. officials have accused China of actively supporting Russia's war effort. Washington has placed sanctions on Chinese firms supplying critical components to Russia's defense sector.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller recently told VOA that the U.S. openly discusses its "differences" with China to ensure both countries "at least understand where the other is coming from, even if we can’t reach an agreement."

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Olena Goncharova

Head of North America desk

Olena Goncharova is the Head of North America desk at The Kyiv Independent, where she has previously worked as a development manager and Canadian correspondent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper’s Canadian correspondent in June 2018. She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master’s degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months. The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.

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The project would involve Romanian investment in a local factory, likely in Brasov, where Ukrainian and Romanian teams would collaborate on manufacturing drones based on Ukrainian designs developed through wartime experience.

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