US official urges China not to ‘look the other way’ on Russia’s threats to Ukraine

A senior State Department official on Friday warned that the world is closely watching China’s engagement with Russia as the U.S. and its partners in Europe work to stave off a potential Russian invasion of its neighbor Ukraine.

Daniel J. Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said a meeting Friday between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin provided an opportunity for Beijing to “encourage Russia to pursue diplomacy and de-escalation in Ukraine.”

“That is what the world expects from responsible powers,” Kritenbrink said in a briefing with reporters. “If Russia further invades Ukraine and China looks the other way, it suggests that China is willing to tolerate, or tacitly support Russia’s efforts to coerce Ukraine, even when they embarrass Beijing, harm European security, and risk global peace and economic stability.” 

Russia invaded Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and annexed the territory in a move condemned by the international community. 

Xi and Putin met ahead of the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing and issued a lengthy joint statement in which the two controversial leaders affirmed a bond between their countries that “has no limits” and is “superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era,” a veiled reference to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and partnerships among Western democracies in general. 

The statement went on to say that “The sides oppose further enlargement of NATO and call on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologized cold war approaches … The sides stand against the formation of closed bloc structures.” It also further denounced the U.S. strategy in the Indo-Pacific as having a negative impact and engaging with “opposing camps in the Asia-Pacific region”.  

The U.S. is engaged in intensive diplomacy to try to prevent a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Putin has massed more than 100,000 troops on its border with the former Soviet state and moved troops to Belarus on Ukraine’s northern border, a move it says are part of military exercises but that the U.S. says is a dangerous provocation. 

Russia denies that it has plans to invade Ukraine but has issued security demands of the U.S. and NATO, asking them to commit to barring Ukraine and several other nations from ever joining the alliance.

The U.S. has rejected this demand but said it is willing to discuss steps both sides can take to address arms control, impose limits on missile deployments and increase transparency around the size and scope of military drills.  

With Russia failing to heed calls by the U.S. and other nations to draw down its troops from Ukraine’s border, the Biden administration has warned that Russia is poised to invade, and the White House is working to coordinate a punishing sanctions regime if Russian troops move across the border. 

The administration has further raised alarm that Russia is coordinating highly detailed operations to create a pretext for invasion, including the production of a propaganda video that the U.S. said would make use of fake corpses and crisis actors to portray a Ukrainian attack on Russians. 

Senior administration officials have raised the possibility that Putin’s travel to Beijing could provide a small reprieve to the threat on Ukraine’s border, speculating the Russian leader would not take action amid China’s hosting of the two-week Olympic competition. 

But Kritenbrink on Friday raised the possibility that the Olympics provide an opportunity for Putin to launch an invasion, referencing Russia’s invasion of Georgia during the 2008 Summer Olympics — which also took place in Beijing — that occurred following Moscow’s stated opposition to Georgia’s intent to join NATO.

“We have unfortunately seen this before,” Kritenbrink said.

“This marks the second time that Russia has escalated aggression toward a sovereign country during a Beijing Olympics. The last time was Russia’s invasion of Georgia during the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics,” he added.

Kritenbrink underscored that the U.S. has held almost 200 diplomatic engagements with allies and partners since Russia first started posturing military troops on its border with Ukraine in November. 

“We are focused on working with allies and partners including in the Indo-Pacific to respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine.”