US officials repeatedly urged China to help avert war in Ukraine

WASHINGTON (NYTIMES) - Over three months, senior Biden administration officials held half a dozen urgent meetings with top Chinese officials in which the Americans presented intelligence showing Russia's troop buildup around Ukraine and beseeched the Chinese to tell Russia not to invade, according to US officials.

Each time, the Chinese officials, including the foreign minister and the ambassador to the United States, rebuffed the Americans, saying they did not think an invasion was in the works. After one diplomatic exchange in December, US officials got intelligence showing Beijing had shared the information with Moscow, telling the Russians that the United States was trying to sow discord - and that China would not try to impede Russian plans and actions, the officials said.

The previously unreported talks between American and Chinese officials show how the Biden administration tried to use intelligence findings and diplomacy to persuade a superpower it views as a growing adversary to stop the invasion of Ukraine, and how that nation, led by President Xi Jinping, persistently sided with Russia even as the evidence of Moscow's plans for a military offensive grew over the winter.

This account is based on interviews with senior administration officials with knowledge of the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the diplomacy.

The Chinese Embassy spokesman, Liu Pengyu, answered an earlier request for comment a half-day after this article was posted online, saying, "For some time, China has actively promoted the political settlement process of the Ukraine issue."

China is Russia's most powerful partner, and the two nations have been strengthening their bond for many years across diplomatic, economic and military realms. Xi and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, two men with some shared ideas about global power, had met 37 times as national leaders before this year. If any world leader could make Putin think twice about invading Ukraine, it was Xi, went the thinking of some US officials.

But the diplomatic efforts failed, and Putin began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Thursday (Feb 24) morning after recognising two Russia-backed insurgent enclaves in the country's east as independent states.

In a call on Friday, Putin told Xi that the United States and Nato had ignored Russia's "reasonable" security concerns and had reneged on their commitments, according to a readout of the call released by the Chinese state news media.

Xi reiterated China's public position that it was important to respect the "legitimate security concerns" as well as the "sovereignty and territorial integrity" of all countries. Putin told Xi that Russia was willing to negotiate with Ukraine, and Xi said China supported any such move.

Some American officials say the ties between China and Russia appear stronger than at any time since the Cold War. The two now present themselves as an ideological front against the United States and its European and Asian allies, even as Putin carries out the invasion of Ukraine, whose sovereignty China has recognised for decades.

In the recent private talks on Ukraine, American officials heard language from their Chinese counterparts that was consistent with harder lines the Chinese had been voicing in public, which showed that a more hostile attitude had become entrenched, according to the American accounts.

On Wednesday, after Putin ordered troops into eastern Ukraine but before its full invasion, Hua Chunying, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said at a news conference in Beijing that the United States was "the culprit of current tensions surrounding Ukraine".

"On the Ukraine issue, lately the US has been sending weapons to Ukraine, heightening tensions, creating panic and even hyping up the possibility of warfare," she said. "If someone keeps pouring oil on the flame while accusing others of not doing their best to put out the fire, such kind of behaviour is clearly irresponsible and immoral."

She added: "When the US drove five waves of Nato expansion eastwards all the way to Russia's doorstep and deployed advanced offensive strategic weapons in breach of its assurances to Russia, did it ever think about the consequences of pushing a big country to the wall?" She has refused to call Russia's assault an "invasion" when pressed by foreign journalists.

Hua's anti-US remarks as Russia was moving to attack its neighbour stunned some current and former US officials and China analysts in the United States. But the verbal grenades echo major points in the 5,000-word joint statement that China and Russia issued on Feb 4 when Xi and Putin met at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing.

In that document, the two countries declared their partnership had "no limits" and that they intended to stand together against US-led democratic nations. China also explicitly sided with Russia in the text to denounce enlargement of the Nato alliance.

Last Saturday, Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, criticised Nato in a video talk at the Munich Security Conference. European leaders in turn accused China of working with Russia to overturn what they and the Americans say is a "rules-based international order".

Wang did say that Ukraine's sovereignty should be "respected and safeguarded" - a reference to a foreign policy principle that Beijing often cites - but no Chinese officials have mentioned Ukraine in those terms since Russia's full invasion began.

"They claim neutrality, they claim they stand on principle, but everything they say about the causes is anti-US, blaming Nato and adopting the Russian line," said Evan Medeiros, a Georgetown University professor who was senior Asia director at the White House National Security Council in the Obama administration.

"The question is: How sustainable is that as a posture? How much damage does it do to their ties with the US and their ties with Europe?"