“The key for the solution of this crisis is in the hands of NATO and the U.S., not in the hands of China,” Liu said. “But anyway, China, as I said, has already been making efforts to promote those dialogues. So we would also like to encourage the U.S., the NATO members, to all be engaged in the peace talks, and also engaging in the negotiation, which is undergoing now between Russia and Ukraine.”

China has long voiced its opposition to NATO’s expansion, a stance encoded in the joint statement released following Xi and Putin’s summit early last month at the beginning of the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, which ended just a day before Russia’s incursion into Ukraine began.

While Beijing’s negative views toward NATO date back decades, including the notable 1999 incident in which the U.S. bombed China’s embassy in Belgrade as part of an allied campaign against Yugoslavia, killing three and injuring at least 20 more, concerns toward the bloc’s expansion have been amplified in recent years as Washington turned its focus on the Asia-Pacific region.