In an interview with The Sunday Times, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued a message to China to choose the right side in the Russia-Ukraine conflict as he claimed that there are some signs of second thoughts in Beijing. This came after US President Joe Biden, in a call with China's President Xi Jinping, detailed the implications and consequences if Beijing were to provide material support to Russia in its attacks against Ukraine.
The UK prime minister accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying to establish a new authoritarian world order and said China risked being on the wrong side of history by not condemning his actions. "I think that in Beijing you are starting to see some second thoughts," he told the newspaper.
"I don't think I have ever seen such a clear case of right and wrong. I have never seen such a stark division between good and evil as there is in this invasion. And it is clear that right is overwhelmingly on the side of the Ukrainians. That is why their plight is obvious to the world and why I think that in the last three weeks people's understanding of what is happening is changing," he said.
After Biden's talks to Xi, US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told CNN in an interview that Biden was clear about his discussion with Xi, in which he made our position very well-known that there will be consequences if China decides to provide substantial military or financial support to the Russians that allow them to avoid the sanctions. "The conversation was two hours long, but it was extraordinarily frank, it was detailed and substantive. And we made our position clear to the Chinese," she said.
"They are in an uncomfortable position. They have been put in a position of defending Russia against our principles of sovereignty and integrity of borders. So, they have to decide where they will go from this point, and not sit on the fence, and call out the Russian aggression for what it is, and not put themselves in the position of defending what is indefensible," Thomas-Greenfield said about Beijing.
-Inputs from agencies