US Ukraine crisis Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

A Chinese envoy refuted the US representative's unreasonable accusations against China at a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Briefing on Ukraine on Monday, urging the US not to use the Ukraine crisis to advance geopolitical strategies, provoke camp confrontations, or serve its own agenda.

Geng Shuang, China's deputy permanent representative to the UN, made a speech at the UNSC meeting on Ukraine.

China is neither the creator of, nor party to, the Ukraine crisis, nor has the country provided lethal weapons to any party thereto, Geng said, debunking the US representative who made unreasonable accusations against China at the UNSC briefing. 

Unlike the US, we have not and will not deliberately prolong the conflict and profit from it. Our position is to promote peace talks and a political settlement, Geng said. 

According to the meeting coverage published by the UN on Monday, the representative of the US at the UNSC briefing expressed the so-called concern over "China's support to rebuild Moscow's defense industrial base." 

China has the right to conduct normal economic and trade cooperation with all countries, including Russia. China has always had very strict controls on the export of dual-use items. We urge the US to stop spreading rumors, stop slandering, attacking and smearing China, and stop unilateral sanctions and unjust suppression on Chinese companies, Geng stated.

Shifting focus and passing the buck is not the correct way to solve the Ukraine crisis, Geng told the US side. 

The UNSC briefing came as the US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin committed on Monday to keeping the flow of US weapons moving to Ukraine.

According to AP News, Austin and as many as 50 defense leaders from Europe and around the world met on Monday to coordinate over sending more military aid to Ukraine.

The powers of Ukraine's incumbent president, Vladimir Zelensky, will expire under the Constitution on May 21 and there is no legitimate way of extending them, Russian News Agency TASS reported previously, citing Ukrainian member of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) Alexander Dubinsky. According to The Economist on Thursday, a spokesperson for the Kremlin in Moscow has questioned the future political authority of Zelensky with no obvious possibility of elections. 

Zelensky has been urging the US to send more weapons to Ukraine, but the political impasse in the superpower has delayed delivery.

In the four weeks since US President Joe Biden signed the $95 billion foreign aid package, which included about $61 billion in aid for Ukraine, the US has sent $1.4 billion in weapons pulled from Pentagon stockpiles and announced it was providing $6 billion in funding through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, according to the AP.

While the global mainstream view is to call for a cease-fire, the US and a few European leaders are reluctant to see a halt to the conflict, Chinese analysts commented.

The fact that the US has pushed for more aid to Ukraine and is now striving to garner as much support from allies as possible indicates that the Biden administration is determined to at least maintain the situation in Ukraine until the US presidential elections, Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Without help from other countries, the US will struggle handling assistance to Ukraine alone, the expert noted.

A failure in Ukraine would not only tarnish the Biden administration but also damage the overall image of the US, dealing a heavy blow for the superpower to maintaining its global prestige, Lü said.

In the context, a large amount of weapons and ammunition continue to flow into the battlefield, with the variety and scope constantly expanding, the lethality and casualties increasing, and the risks of loss and proliferation accumulating, causing deep concern, Geng said at the UNSC meeting.

While weapons may end wars, they do not bring lasting peace, reiterated Geng. China calls on all parties involved to prioritize peace and humanity, concentrate resources and efforts on diplomatic efforts to cease fire and end the war, and jointly promote an early political solution to the Ukraine crisis.

China is willing to continue to make unremitting efforts and play a constructive role in promoting an early political solution to the Ukraine crisis, the Chinese envoy said.