US expresses 'deep concerns' on Russia-China 'alignment'
WASHINGTON, United States — The United States expressed concern Monday about "alignment" between Russia and China, after high-ranking US and Chinese officials met for seven hours on the Ukraine war and other security issues.
"We do have deep concerns about China's alignment with Russia," a senior US official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding: "It was a very candid conversation."
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Yang Jiechi, the Chinese Communist Party's chief diplomat, met in a Rome hotel for what a White House readout described as a "substantial" session.
The White House said the two officials also "underscored the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between the United States and China."
Moscow and Beijing have drawn closer in what Washington sees as an increasingly hostile alliance of the authoritarian nuclear powers.
Sullivan's meeting with the top Chinese diplomat was planned weeks ago, officials say, but the encounter took on new importance against the backdrop of President Vladimir Putin's onslaught against Ukrainian cities.
The officials were also meeting a day after US media reported that Russia has asked China for military and economic assistance as its troops struggle to make ground in Ukraine and its economy faces devastation from Western sanctions.
The New York Times, citing unnamed US officials, said there was no indication whether China had responded, but China has so far sent mixed signals on Russia's bloody invasion and US officials say the jury is still out on how Beijing will act.
China's 'leverage' on Russia
Washington hopes Beijing can use its influence on Putin. And while Beijing does not back Western sanctions, the White House is pressuring the economic giant at minimum to refrain from rescuing Russia from potential default or sending weaponry.
"We've communicated very clearly to Beijing, that we won't stand by," State Department spokesman Ned Price said. "We will not allow any country to compensate Russia for its losses."
"We are watching very closely the extent to which... (China) or any other country for that matter provides any form of support, whether that's material support, economic support," he said.
Price also stressed China's "tremendous leverage" over Russia and said "China could do more than probably many other countries to bring an end to this senseless violence, to this brutality, to Putin's premeditated war."
Beijing refused to directly address the reports, instead accusing Washington of maliciously spreading "disinformation" over China's role in the Ukraine war.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told journalists Monday that China had "played a constructive role in urging peace and calling for negotiations."
The senior US official told reporters that in addition to Ukraine, Sullivan and Yang discussed North Korea, which is ramping up missile tests, and tension over Taiwan, which is run as an independent country but is claimed by China.
The official described the talks as reflecting the "intensity" of the current atmosphere and that it was important to have "a candid, direct exchange of views."
"We believe that it is important to keep open lines of communication between the United States and China, especially on areas where we disagree," the official said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday secured Turkey's crucial backing for Ukraine's NATO aspirations after winning a US pledge for cluster munitions that could inflict massive damage on Russian forces on the battlefield.
Washington's decision to deliver the controversial weapons — banned across a large part of the world but not in Russia or Ukraine — dramatically ups the stakes in the war, which entered its 500th day Saturday.
Zelensky has been travelling across Europe trying to secure bigger and better weapons for his outmatched army, which has launched a long-awaited counteroffensive that is progressing less swiftly than Ukraine's allies had hoped. — AFP
Washington's decision to supply Ukraine with ATACMS long-range missiles is "a grave mistake", Russian ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov says Wednesday.
"The White House's decision to send long-range missiles to Ukrainians is a grave mistake. The consequences of this step, which was deliberately hidden from the public, will be of the most serious nature," he says in a statement. — AFP
President Vladimir Putin says Sunday that Russian forces had made gains in their Ukraine offensive including in Avdiivka, a symbolic industrial hub.
"Our troops are improving their position in almost all of this area, which is quite vast," he says in an interview on Russian television, an extract of which was posted on social media on Sunday. "This concerns the areas of Kupiansk, Zaporizhia and Avdiivka." — AFP
The regional governor says debris from a drone destroyed over the Russian region of Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, fell on homes and killed three people, including a young child.
The air defense system "shot down an aircraft-type UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) approaching the city", says Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, adding that the falling debris destroyed several homes.
"Most importantly, three people were killed, one of them a small child," he writes on the Telegram messaging app, accompanied by pictures of a house reduced to a pile of rubble behind red and white police tape. — AFP
Ukraine's air force says on Tuesday that it had destroyed 27 of 36 Russian attack drones overnight in the south of the country.
Ukrainian forces downed 27 "Shahed-136/131" drones in the southern Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa regions, the air force said on the messaging platform Telegram.
In all, Moscow had launched 36 of the Iranian-made drones from the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014, it says. — AFP
The Kremlin claims on Friday Russian forces never targeted civilian infrastructure after Ukraine blamed Moscow for a missile attack that killed over 50 people in the eastern village of Groza.
"We repeat that the Russian military does not strike civilian targets. Strikes are carried out on military targets, on places where military personnel are concentrated," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says in his daily briefing. — AFP
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