Antony Blinken expected to warn of 'dual-use' support for Russia in trip to China

April 24 (UPI) -- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Shanghai on Wednesday to start a three-day diplomatic mission in China.

The State Department said Blinken will meet with Chinese officials and will talk about "a range of bilateral, regional and global issues, including the crisis in the Middle East, Russia's war against Ukraine, cross-Strait issues and the South China Sea."

Blinken is particularly expected to seize on China's sale of so-called "dual-use technology" or products that can be used for both military and civilian purposes to Russia, during a later meeting in Beijing with China's Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi and possibly President Xi Jinping.

"We see China sharing machine tools, semiconductors, other dual-use items that have helped Russia rebuild its defense industrial base that sanctions and export controls had done so much to degrade," Blinken said during a press conference last week.

Ahead of Blinken's visit, however, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin asserted China's trade with Russia should not be limited.

"Let me stress again that China's right to conduct normal trade and economic exchanges with Russia and other countries in the world on the basis of equality and mutual benefit should not be interfered with or disrupted," Wang said. "China's legitimate and lawful rights and interests should not be infringed on."

Blinken's the latest in a series of high-level Biden cabinet members to visit China. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was there earlier this month while President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke on the phone.

The meetings will follow up on Biden's summit with Xi when they met in California last November, which included countering the flow of drugs into the United States from China, military-to-military communication, artificial intelligence and "managing competition" between the two countries.

While the United States and China have disagreed on a score of issues, there are some areas of mutual concern and interest. Both, for example, are concerned over tensions in the Middle East and its threat to shipping goods in the region, which affects their economies.

Both have called on Israel and Iran to show restraints, fearing that such a conflict would disrupt commerce in the Red Sea.