President Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin drew applause from China Tuesday, as a diplomat predicted benefits for “world peace” would flow from the meeting.
“China welcomes the improvement of Russia-U.S. relations,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters. “We hope that the two sides will step up communication and expand cooperation.”
Trump touted his meeting with Putin in Helsinki as a major step towards rehabilitating ties between the two nuclear powers; the former Cold War rival has labored under American and European economic sanctions since 2014, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But the meeting drew bipartisan rebuke for Trump after he failed to condemn Putin for the 2016 election interference and blamed the United States for the poor relationship between the two sides.
[Also read: ‘Shameful’: Senate Republicans blast Trump after he blamed US for soured Russian relationship]
“I have full faith and support for America’s great intelligence agencies,” Trump told reporters Tuesday. “I have felt very strongly that while Russia had no impact at all on the outcome of the election, let me be totally clear in saying that I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place.”
Trump gave credence repeatedly to Putin’s denial of responsibility on Monday. When asked to “denounce what happened in 2016,” Trump replied first by raising questions about whether the FBI conducted an adequate investigation of the Democratic National Committee’s server.
“With that being said, all I can do is ask the question. My people came to me — [Director of National Intelligence] Dan Coats came to me and some others — they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia,” Trump continued. “I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be, but I really do want to see the server. …. So I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.”
The president said Monday that he misspoke at a “key” juncture. “I said the word ‘would’ instead of ‘wouldnt,’ the sentence should have been ‘I see no reason why I wouldn’t’ or ‘why it would be Russia,’” Trump said.
Putin, for his part, argued that the investigation into Russian interference in the election is designed to hurt the U.S.-Russia relationship. “Don’t make the relationship between Russia and the United States — don’t hold it hostage of this internal political struggle,” Putin told Fox News’ Chris Wallace. “And it’s quite clear to me that this is just an internal political struggle, and it’s nothing to be proud of for American democracy to use such dirty methods and political rivalry.”
But Putin expressed optimism that ties would improve following the Helsinki meeting. “We are interested in developing our relationship in the area of security, of strategic stability, economic challenges, strategic challenges, and any other challenges that we have,” he said. “I think that today with President Trump we made the first step in this direction.”
China took a similar tone. “This is conducive to the cause of world peace and development and the joint efforts of the international community to address common challenges,” Chunying said. “We are fully confident in the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination, and the China-Russia relations will not be affected by any external factors. Our stance on the development of the China-U.S. relations is also consistent and clear-cut.”
