Senior Chinese officials early last month told senior Russian officials not to invade Ukraine before the end of the Winter Olympics, the New York Times reported, quoting White House officials and a European official who cited a Western intelligence report.
The Times said that the intelligence report indicated that senior Chinese officials had some level of knowledge about Russia’s plans or intentions to invade Ukraine before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the operation last week.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed that China had made the request, but declined to provide details. The source declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Photo: AFP
“The claims mentioned in the relevant reports are speculations without any basis, and are intended to blame-shift and smear China,” said Liu Pengyu (劉鵬宇), a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington.
The US Department of State, the CIA and the White House National Security Council did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
After weeks of warnings from Western leaders, Russia unleashed a three-pronged invasion of Ukraine from the north, east and south on Thursday last week, just days after the Beijing Winter Olympics ended.
Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met at the start of the Olympics on Feb. 4 and declared an upgraded “no limits” partnership in which they pledged to collaborate more against the West.
The New York Times said that the intelligence on the exchange between the Chinese and Russian officials was collected by a Western intelligence service and was considered credible by officials reviewing it.
US officials have confirmed previous Times reporting that Washington passed on to senior Chinese officials intelligence on the Russian troop buildup around Ukraine ahead of the invasion in the hope that Beijing would persuade Moscow to stand down its troops.
The newspaper said that senior officials in the US and in allied governments passed around the intelligence as they discussed when Putin might attack Ukraine, but intelligence services had varying interpretations, adding that it was not clear how widely the information was shared.
One official that the Times said was familiar with the intelligence said the material did not necessarily indicate the conversations about an invasion took place at the level of Xi and Putin.
Bonny Lin, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said it was unclear how much Xi knew about Putin’s intentions.
She added that China had been slow to evacuate citizens from Ukraine, which suggested it was not fully prepared.
“Given the evidence we have so far, I think we can’t rule out either possibility definitely — that Xi didn’t know and that Xi may have known,” she said.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
PAPAL RETORT: Pope Leo told reporters that he has ‘no fear, neither of the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel’ US President Donald Trump has feuded with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran conflict — setting off an unholy row that could have serious political implications for the Republican leader back in the US. Trump has drawn barbs even from some allies over the attacks on the US-born pontiff, who has criticized the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown, the intervention in Venezuela and the Iran war. The president risks alienating the religious right in November’s crucial US midterm elections. So far the unprecedented clash between the leader of the most powerful military on Earth and the head of the world’s 1.4 billion
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in Florida in the death of his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. Timothy Hudson was initially charged in February and subsequently indicted on March 10, but the breadth of the case was not known until a seal was lifted on Friday last week, weeks after US District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami said that he would be prosecuted as an adult at the request of the government. Anna Kepner had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship in November last
RSS