America is hoping to build more stable and profitable relations with Russia, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has stated in an interview with the Italian newspaper la Repubblica.
At the same time, the American diplomat promised that Washington will not let any "attacks" carried out by Moscow against it go unanswered. For reasons that remain unclear, Blinken included the incarceration of opposition activist Alexei Navalny over his violation of Russian laws to the list of "attacks" against the US.
"If Russia continues to attack us, or to act as it did with the SolarWind attacks, the intrusions into our elections and the aggression against Navalny, then we will respond", the diplomat said.
Washington has accused the Kremlin in the past of being involved in attempts to meddle in American elections, as well as a large-scale hacking campaign carried out via the injection of a malicious code into SolarWinds' software. During a recent meeting between the two countries' presidents, Joe Biden raised the issue with Vladimir Putin, stressing that critical infrastructure is "off-limits".
Moscow repeatedly rejected Washington's accusations, pointing to the US systematically lacking solid proof to substantiate the allegations of the Kremlin's involvement. Furthermore, Russia, on multiple occasions, has proposed to the international community to develop rules of engagement for the cybersphere, but such proposals were routinely rejected by some in the West, including the US.
On Allies' Relations With China
Blinken also touched upon the subject of the nation's allies often close trade relationships with China, despite Washington seeing the Asian nation as its current rival and seeking to pressure it on a number of issues. The secretary of state elaborated that the US does not mind its allies in Europe cooperating with Beijing on certain issues, but added that Washington would prefer it to be otherwise.
"It is, however, true that when we deal with China - as an opponent, a rival, or a partner - we are much more effective if we act together", Blinken said.
The secretary of state stressed that Washington does not want to make its allies chose between the US and China. He noted that China was one of the most complex countries the US has had to deal with. Blinken explained that in some areas the two nations are rivals, while in others they can be partners.
The previous administration under Donald Trump had a slightly different approach towards its allies' relations with China and specifically their interest in 5G technologies provided by the Chinese tech giant Huawei. Trump's administration lobbied and pressured European nations to ban Huawei's equipment on their territory, claiming it is not secure and threatening to cut them off from intelligence-sharing programmes. While some nations agreed to remove Huawei, at least from critical 5G infrastructure, others stood firm in their plans to allow the tech giant to participate in building the next-generation networks.