The statement said Cheng Guoping, Commissioner for Foreign Affairs and Security of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, met with Andrei Denisov of Russia and exchanged views on bilateral anti-terrorism and security cooperation.
As the pace of Russian forces appears to have slowed into the cities, On Thursday, the United States expressed concern that China may assist Moscow with military equipment as the war enters its fourth week.
And renewed Russian bombing of the capital, Kyiv, while rescue teams worked to pull survivors from under the rubble of buildings destroyed by Russian attacks in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol.
Despite stumbling on the battlefield and harsh punishments from the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown no signs of backing down.
His government says it is counting on China to help Russia weather the blows to its economy.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said the United States, which this week announced $800 million in new military aid to Kyiv, was concerned that Beijing was “considering directly assisting Russia with military hardware in Ukraine”.
Blinken told reporters that President Joe Biden will make clear to Chinese President Xi Jinping in a phone call on Friday that Beijing “will take responsibility for any measures it takes to support Russian aggression, and we will not hesitate to pass the costs on to it.”
China has refused to condemn the Russian move in Ukraine or describe it as an invasion. It says it recognizes Ukraine’s sovereignty but understands that Russia has legitimate security concerns that need to be addressed.
While the United States says it wants to avoid a direct confrontation with Russia, China’s military aid to Moscow will put Washington and Beijing, the world’s two largest powers, on opposite sides in the biggest attack on European nations since World War II.
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