US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US has seen evidence of Chinese attempts to “influence and arguably interfere” with the upcoming US elections, despite an earlier commitment from leader Xi Jinping not to do so.

Blinken made the comments to CNN’s Kylie Atwood in an interview Friday at the close of a three-day to trip to China, where the top American diplomat spent hours meeting with top Chinese officials including Xi, as the two countries navigated a raft of contentious issues from US tech controls to Beijing’s support for Moscow.

Blinken said he repeated a message President Joe Biden gave to Xi during their summit in San Francisco last November not to interfere in the 2024 US presidential elections. Then, Xi had pledged that that China would not do so, according to CNN reporting.

“We have seen, generally speaking, evidence of attempts to influence and arguably interfere, and we want to make sure that that’s cut off as quickly as possible,” Blinken said when asked whether China was violating Xi’s commitment to Biden so far.

“Any interference by China in our election is something that we’re looking very carefully at and is totally unacceptable to us, so I wanted to make sure that they heard that message again,” Blinken said, adding there was concern about China and other countries playing on existing social divisions in the US in influence campaigns.

Beijing has repeatedly said it does not interfere in US elections, based on its principle of non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs. China or actors that are believed to be affiliated with Beijing have been accused of political interference in other countries, such as Canada.

Warning on support for Russia

Blinken also said he used his meeting to raise the Biden administration’s concerns about China’s support for Russia’s defense industrial base – and to stress that further action would be taken by the US on top of existing sanctions on more than 100 Chinese entities and individuals if such support continues.

The US believes that Chinese support is enabling Russia to ramp up production of tanks, munitions and armored vehicles – and to continue its onslaught on Ukraine.

“What we said to China is this – we’re going to take actions (that) we already have, and if it doesn’t stop, we’re going to have to take more action, and you can anticipate as well, that other countries will (too),” Blinken said, adding that he raised the issue to both Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Xi. “We’re looking to them to act, and … if they don’t, we will.”

He declined to provide a timeline for further action and said that Chinese counterparts had not acknowledged the role of these goods in the war in Ukraine, but characterized this as trade with Russia and said Moscow’s success didn’t depend on China.

Beijing has previously slammed the US as making “groundless accusations” over “normal trade and economic exchanges” between China and Russia.

China has long contended that it maintains neutrality in the Ukraine war and has continued to present itself as a potential peace broker in the conflict, even as it has strengthened its economic, strategic and diplomatic ties with Russia since the war began.

Defending the right to protest

Blinken also defended the American right to protest, when asked about pro-Palestinian protests that have erupted across college campuses in the US in recent days and about reports of use of antisemitic rhetoric at some of these gatherings.

He said there had been instances where there have been clear expressions of antisemitism, but “protests in and of themselves are not antisemitic.”

“What we’re also seeing is people, young people, people from different walks of life, who do feel very passionately, who’ve had very strong emotions about (the conflict),” he said.

He also stressed the importance of such expression in democracies, without explicitly noting the lack of such freedoms in China.

“In our country, and in our society and our democracy, giving expression to that is, of course, something that’s both appropriate and protected,” he said.