Biden Downplays Significance of Deepening Russia-China Ties

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(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden said he “doesn’t take lightly” the prospect of a growing alliance between China and Russia but countered that the US is making gains in strengthening international opposition to Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. 

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“We have significantly expanded our alliances. I haven’t seen that happen with China and Russia or anybody else in the world,” Biden said Friday following a visit from Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Putin in Moscow that saw the two nations pledge to deepen ties. 

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“We’re the ones expanding alliances. The opposition’s not,” Biden added during a press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday in Ottawa.

The US president conceded that the problems posed by stronger ties between China and Russia “could get significantly worse.”

“But let’s put it in perspective,” he said. “We are united coalitions. We. We, the United States and Canada.”

Biden said he’d been hearing for the past three months that “China’s going to provide significant weapons to Russia,” before lowering his voice to a whisper and adding, “They haven’t yet.”

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“Doesn’t mean they won’t, but they haven’t yet,” he said.  

Xi, China’s president, made a three-day visit to Moscow, where he referred to Putin as his “dear friend” and called for a cease-fire in Ukraine that would reward Moscow’s invasion by cementing its territorial gains, a proposal the Biden administration has deemed unacceptable.

The Kremlin visit, which followed China’s efforts to orchestrate a diplomatic detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia, raised questions about whether Xi’s Ukraine peacemaking project would gain traction with nations weary of an expensive war and its impact on the global economy. 

Read more: US Fears a War-Weary World May Embrace China’s Ukraine Peace Bid

Despite US efforts to keep Beijing from forming closer ties with Moscow after Putin invaded Ukraine last year, China and Russia are deepening their cooperation, including on atomic technology. Congress has been pushing the White House to crack down on what it views as a dangerous alignment between Kremlin-controlled nuclear giant Rosatom Corp. and the China National Nuclear Corp.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken criticized Xi for making his first trip to Russia since the war began just days after the International Criminal Court in the Hague accused Putin of war crimes and issued a warrant for his arrest.

Some world leaders described the Xi visit to Russia as an eye opener. China is “moving overtly on the side of Russia and this is a big challenge for all of us,” Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins said Thursday.