A meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing should have been an opportunity for China to encourage Russia to de-escalate tensions with Ukraine, the US State Department's top diplomat for East Asia said.
Such an approach is what the world expects from "responsible powers," Daniel Kritenbrink told reporters of the meeting that led to China and Russia proclaiming a deep strategic partnership.
"If Russia further invades Ukraine and China looks the other way, it suggests that China is willing to tolerate or tacitly support Russia’s efforts to coerce Ukraine, even when they embarrass Beijing, harm European security and risk global peace and economic stability," Mr Kritenbrink said.
China and Russia proclaimed the deep strategic partnership on Friday to balance what they portrayed as the malign global influence of the United States, as China's president hosted Putin on the opening day of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
"Friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no 'forbidden' areas of cooperation," they declared.
US forces to arrive in Poland
Meanwhile, the first main US forces are expected to arrive in Poland on Saturday, defence sources told Reuters on Friday, in order to reinforce Nato's eastern flank as the West and Russia wrangle over Russia's military presence near the Ukrainian border.
The sources, who requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the troops' arrival, said the plans could change depending on security and logistics.
President Joe Biden's administration on Wednesday announced the deployment of nearly 3,000 American troops to eastern Europe in the coming days amid the standoff with Russia over Ukraine.
Around 1,700 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, are meant to come to Poland, Poland's Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak and the Pentagon said on Wednesday, but only on a temporary basis.
A small group of soldiers from the US Air Force's 435th Air Ground Operations Wing, which is headquartered at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, arrived on Thursday to prepare for the arrival of the troops and military equipment.
More flights with equipment landed on Friday at Rzeszow-Jasionka airport in Southern Poland.
The US military already has about 4,500 troops in Poland in both a Nato and a bilateral capacity, mostly stationed in the west of the country on a rotational basis.
