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They expressed opposition to NATO enlargement and called out “actors representing but the minority on the international scale” who “continue to advocate unilateral approaches to addressing international issues.”
President Biden’s absence from the spectacle, having ordered a diplomatic boycott in protest of Beijing’s human rights abuses, underscored the not-so-subtle subtext of Friday’s Olympic event, the renewed division of the world, at the moment at least, into two superpower camps, China and Russia versus the U.S.
Xi, who has not met another foreign leader in person in almost two years, said China and Russia “firmly support each other in safeguarding their core interests,” according to a summary of the meeting by the state news agency Xinhua.
Adding deeds to the words, Putin announced a deal to supply China with more gas via a new pipeline.
Putin’s starring role at Xi’s Olympic’s comes as Russia faces foreign censure over its military build-up around Ukraine and as China bristles through the partial diplomatic boycott of the Games.
The joint statement gave China the opportunity to provide some diplomatic cover to Russia’s regional mobilization, by framing it in broader terms as part of a response to the United States’ global designs rather than as Russian expansionism.
Their statement mentioned shared positions on a range of issues of concern to one or both countries, from NATO to Taiwan to Japan’s handling water from Fukushima. It touted each country’s status as a “world power” and ruminated — at length — on the true meaning of democracy and human rights.
“Russia and China stand against attempts by external forces to undermine security and stability in their common adjacent regions,” the statement said, and “intend to counter interference by outside forces in the internal affairs of sovereign countries under any pretext.”
Just hours before their meeting, the United States warned China against helping Russia dodge potential sanctions related to the crisis in Ukraine.
Washington and its allies “have an array of tools” that can be deployed against “foreign companies, including those in China” that attempt to evade potential punitive measures against Russia, State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters Thursday. He declined to offer specifics, but Western officials have floated penalties on Russian financial institutions, curbs on U.S. technology exports and personal sanctions against Kremlin leaders and their associates.
Analysts worry that Chinese support could embolden the Kremlin. The last time China hosted the Olympics, in the summer of 2008, Russia invaded Georgia as Putin watched that event’s Opening Ceremonies in Beijing.
China and Russia have grown closer in the years since. Beijing is frustrated by Western criticism of its human rights abuses against ethnic minorities and its aggressive stance on Taiwan, while Moscow has justified its massing of troops near Ukraine by citing the expansion of NATO into what Putin sees as Russia’s traditional sphere of influence.
Still, the relationship between China and Russia is not without internal tensions. A crisis in Ukraine that triggers Western sanctions on Russia could make Moscow more dependent on China. At the same time, China has commercial ties with Ukraine. Additional Russian moves in Ukraine could prompt coordinated action from the U.S. and allies — not necessarily good for Beijing.
Fresh in the news was the U.S. claim of a potential fabricated attack video that officials said Moscow was considering that could be used as a pretext for an invasion. The video could include “graphic scenes of a staged false explosion with corpses,” the Biden administration warned. Russian intelligence is intimately involved in the efforts, according to a senior Biden administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under rules set by the administration.
Russian officials denied the alleged false-flag operation. “We are not surprised by the new ‘creative’ scenario,” the Russian Embassy in Washington said in a statement that also referenced the flawed intelligence presented by the George W. Bush administration in the run-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
The Biden administration’s claims were met with pushback due to the lack of specificity and evidence. But Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters the alleged Russian disinformation effort was “right out of their playbook.”
Price, the State Department spokesman, said the Biden administration called out the purported video plan publicly to prevent Russia from using it as a pretext to attack Ukraine.
The U.S. allegations were backed by British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who wrote on Twitter that Washington has offered “shocking evidence of Russia’s unprovoked aggression.”
London last month claimed that Moscow was planning to install a pro-Russian government in Ukraine, and Truss said Thursday that Britain would “continue to expose Russian subterfuge.”
In recent weeks, top Kremlin officials have claimed that Ukraine, emboldened by the West’s diplomatic support and arms shipments, could attempt to militarily seize back Crimea. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and has supported separatists in Ukraine’s east.
Ukrainian leaders have said they seek to regain full control of Crimea and Ukraine’s contested eastern territories. Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, said on Ukrainian television this week that Kyiv would “do everything” to achieve that goal, but he added that it was impossible to say how such a plan would be executed.
Diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the Ukraine crisis continued Thursday. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, repeated his offer to host peace talks. The Kremlin said Putin would meet French President Emmanuel Macron on Feb. 7 and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Feb. 15.
U.S. officials, meanwhile, announced visa restrictions on Belarusian officials whom they accused of “serious, extraterritorial counter-dissident activity.” They highlighted efforts to crack down on Belarusian athletes who spoke out against President Alexander Lukashenko, a Putin ally who has been hosting Russian troops for a military exercise. Western officials fear that those same Russian troops could be part of an attack into neighboring Ukraine.
Jeong reported from Seoul. Rauhala reported from Brussels. Robyn Dixon and Mary Ilyushina in Moscow, David L. Stern in Kyiv, Lily Kuo in Taipei, Eva Dou in Washington, Amy Cheng in Seoul and Rick Noack in Paris contributed to this report.
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