প্রকাশ: 03/03/2022
Senior Chinese
officials told senior Russian officials in early February not to invade Ukraine
before the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, the New York Times reported,
quoting Biden administration officials and a European official who cited a
Western intelligence report.
The Times said the intelligence report indicated senior
Chinese officials had some level of knowledge about Russia's plans or
intentions to invade Ukraine before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched
the operation last week.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed to Reuters that
China had made the request but declined to provide details. The source declined
to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.
"The claims mentioned in the relevant reports are
speculations without any basis, and are intended to blame-shift and smear
China," said Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in
Washington.
The US State Department, the CIA and the White House
National Security Council did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
After weeks of warnings from Western leaders, Russia
unleashed a three-pronged invasion of Ukraine from the north, east and south on
Feb. 24, just days after the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics ended.
Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met at the start of the
Olympics on Feb. 4 and declared an upgraded "no limits" partnership
in which they pledged to collaborate more against the West.
The New York Times said the intelligence on the exchange
between the Chinese and Russian officials was collected by a Western
intelligence service and was considered credible by officials reviewing it.
US officials have confirmed previous Times reporting that
Washington passed on to senior Chinese officials intelligence on the Russian
troop buildup around Ukraine ahead of the invasion in the hope that Beijing
would persuade Moscow to stand down its troops.
The newspaper said senior officials in the United States and
in allied governments passed around the intelligence as they discussed when
Putin might attack Ukraine but intelligence services had varying
interpretations, adding that it was not clear how widely the information was
shared.
One official the Times said was familiar with the
intelligence said the material did not necessarily indicate the conversations
about an invasion took place at the level of Xi and Putin.
Bonny Lin, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies think tank, said it was unclear how much Xi knew about
Putin's intentions.
She noted that China had been to slow to evacuate citizens
from Ukraine, which suggested it was not fully prepared.
"Given the evidence we have so far, I think we can't
rule out either possibility definitely – that Xi didn't know (which is bad) and
that Xi may have known (which is also bad)," she said.
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