China’s muted response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has hardened views within the administration of US President Joe Biden that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) might be moving closer to supporting Moscow as the conflict continues, several people familiar with the matter said.
Even as the Chinese government publicly voices some support for Ukrainians and calls for a peaceful solution, top US officials see signs that China is seeking ways to soften the blow of sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and its allies, said the people, who say they have knowledge of deliberations in Beijing.
The people, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, did not offer details on how China might be able to offset the economic consequences of the sanctions.
They also declined to elaborate on US sources of information about China’s government and its interactions with the Kremlin. Some of the people said China is also considering supplying Russia with weapons such as armed drones.
Beijing denies that it has tacitly backed the invasion and Chinese officials have rejected US reports that Russia asked China for financial and military assistance shortly after touching off the war, labeling them disinformation.
Biden spoke with Xi on Friday, warning him Xi in a videoconference of “implications and consequences” should China support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The highly anticipated call was the first conversation between the leaders since Russia’s invasion last month.
“President Biden detailed our efforts to prevent and then respond to the invasion, including by imposing costs on Russia,” the White House said in a statement. “He described the implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians.”
The brief White House statement described the conversation as “focused” on Ukraine, but much lengthier summaries released by the Chinese side portrayed a more wide-ranging discussion, including “the situation in Ukraine.”
The president is to call on China to use its influence over Putin to urge Russia to end the war, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said on MSNBC on Friday.
If Xi “wants to be a true leader on the world stage,” he will side with Ukraine and the US, she said.
“We will see whether in fact Xi Jinping makes the right choice here,” Sherman said. “His future is with the United States, with Europe, with developing countries around the world. His future is not with Russia and Vladimir Putin.”
The stakes are potentially ground-shifting, after a six-hour meeting on Monday last week in Rome in which US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan warned Chinese Central Foreign Affairs Commission Director Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) of serious consequences should Beijing support Russia through its banks or on the battlefield.
“The fact that China has not denounced what Russia is doing in and of itself speaks volumes,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a briefing on Thursday.
Biden’s call with Xi is “an opportunity for him to speak directly, leader to leader, about a range of issues,” she said. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will be a part of that, and what role or how President Xi sees the role of China in that conflict, will be a part of that.”
Asked for comment on this story, a representative from the Chinese embassy in Washington referred to remarks on Tuesday last week from Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian (趙立堅), who accused the US of “creating and spreading false information.”
Chinese officials have said they seek to foster a diplomatic solution to the crisis. On Thursday, its foreign affairs ministry endorsed comments from its ambassador to Ukraine vowing to “never attack” the country and praising the strength and unity of Ukrainians.
The Russian embassy did not respond to requests for comment.
The true nature of China’s relationship with Russia in light of the war in Ukraine was tackled in an assessment of global threats released on Thursday by the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency. It found that “China is closely managing its messaging on the conflict, generally backing Russia’s characterization as a conflict ultimately caused by US-driven NATO expansion and disregard for Russia’s security interests.”
It also said that “Beijing is likely reluctant to fully back Russia in order to preserve its own economic relations with Europe and the US. No doubt, China is also keenly observing how the Russian campaign is conducted and how combat against determined resistance unfolds.”
Before the Rome meeting, there had been a fluid debate within the administration over whether to use the crisis in Ukraine to try to drive a wedge between China and Russia, who together declared shortly before the invasion that there were “no forbidden areas” in their friendship.
US officials have expressed dismay that China has amplified some Russian disinformation, including claims that Ukrainians were developing biological weapons with US assistance — statements regarded by the White House and NATO as a Kremlin attempt to create a pretext for a possible chemical or biological attack of its own.
Chinese officials, in turn, have dismissed US allegations that Russia sought military assistance from Beijing, including armed drones, shortly after the invasion began. Both the Kremlin and China have denied that any such request was made.
It would be uncharacteristic of China to respond to a Russian request for weapons with an outright “no,” complicating interpretations of Beijing’s intentions, according to a European intelligence official with knowledge of the US assessment. That official said it would make little sense for China to provide significant weaponry.
US officials do not know China’s true intentions toward Russia and Ukraine, according to diplomatic correspondence seen by Bloomberg.
China could regard the war as an opportunity to exploit Russia’s growing economic dependence, such as by buying up strategic assets or making other efforts to damage the West’s leverage. Beijing’s position is ambiguous and contradictory, and recent exchanges with US officials — including Yang’s Rome meeting with Sullivan — have produced little clarity, according to the correspondence.
The Biden administration has also warned Chinese firms not to try to get around Russian trade restrictions the US has imposed on key technologies. Still, it is not clear exactly what type of China-Russia economic activity would prompt the US to impose sanctions on Beijing.
China also represents a potential financial lifeline for Russia’s government and its banks — many of which operate under Western sanctions, virtually cutting them off from the US dollar. After Visa and Mastercard suspended operations in the country, some Russian lenders sought to use China’s UnionPay system, which could allow for continued overseas payments.
Biden’s aides have long said that in general, the best way to clear up US confusion about China’s intentions is for Biden and Xi to speak directly. China has its own strategic priorities, including keeping its domestic economy stable ahead of the Chinese Communist Party Congress later this year.
The relationship between the world’s two economic titans is fraught, and the Ukraine crisis has highlighted the mistrust between them.
The US and China find themselves drawn into a conflict provoked by a country, Russia, that once was so close to the Western world as to host the Group of Eight, but that has for years been drifting into Beijing’s orbit.
China’s role in spreading the Russian disinformation on Ukrainian biolabs, plus unspecified intelligence that Beijing is weighing Moscow’s request for arms, has helped tilt the internal administration debate toward the position of officials at the US National Security Council, who have favored a more hawkish approach toward Beijing.
China is undergoing its worst COVID-19 outbreak since the initial outbreak of the pandemic, and has an incentive to point the finger after the US sought a probe on the origins of COVID-19 — including whether it leaked out of a laboratory in Wuhan.
US Department of State officials had previously seen more opportunity to split Beijing and Moscow over the war, arguing that Beijing’s equivocal statements on the crisis pointed to discomfort at Moscow’s actions.
Sullivan speculated in a CNN interview on Sunday last week that Putin “lied” to China’s leaders and they might not have understood the full extent of his plans in Ukraine.
The Biden administration’s high-level engagement with Beijing has been limited. An early meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, started with Yang — China’s top diplomat — lecturing Sullivan and other US officials over what he said were human rights abuses in the US, as well as rejecting “interference” on Beijing’s claims to Taiwan.
China on Friday sailed an aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait shadowed by US and Taiwanese warships, Reuters reported, a fairly regular occurrence that nonetheless shows the simmering tensions ahead of the Biden-Xi call.
Biden and Xi last spoke in November last year, when they met virtually for nearly four hours — a videoconference that officials said covered the breadth of issues between the countries, but resulted in no real breakthroughs.
The White House has yet to articulate a promised strategy toward China and has put on hold a number of economic actions it planned to take against Beijing, in part due to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, people familiar with internal deliberations said.
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