US Indo-Pacific policy coordinator Kurt Campbell said on Monday that China was in an awkward position of sustaining ties with Russia during Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, but that Washington wants to keep communication lines with Beijing open.
The White House on Sunday called on China to condemn Russia for its attack on neighboring Ukraine, the largest assault on a European state since World War Two.
But Beijing has largely steered clear of criticizing Moscow after Russian President Vladimir Putin and China's leader Xi Jinping announced an enhanced strategic partnership aimed at countering US influence just weeks before the invasion.
Campbell told a webinar hosted by the Washington-based German Marshall Fund that he believed Chinese leaders "have been concerned" by the solidarity shown by US allies and partners and also by the "brutality" of Russia's invasion.
"I think it is undeniable that right now China is occupying an awkward nexus in which they're trying to sustain their deep and fundamental relationship with Russia," Campbell said.
He said it was too early to tell what conclusions anyone, including China, would draw from the conflict, but that the United States had explained to China in advance the risks associated with Russia's invasion.
Russian and Ukrainian officials met to discuss a ceasefire on Monday while Russian forces encountered resistance from Ukrainian troops and civilians on a fifth day of conflict.
"It is our determination to keep lines of communication with China open," Campbell said, adding that the crisis would help solidify institutional connections between Europe and the Indo-Pacific.
"I do think that the circumstances are difficult for them in the current environment, and it's clear from our perspective that the association, so public and so deep, between Russia and China is indeed quite uncomfortable right now," he said.
Mira Rapp-Hooper, a director for Indo-Pacific Strategy at the National Security Council, later told the webinar that she was confident the Ukraine crisis would not divert the United States from its goal of enhancing ties in the Indo-Pacific.
