In recent days, China has amped up its rhetorical support for Russia in a direct slight to the U.S. and other nations who had hoped that Beijing would opt to condemn Moscow for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said, “An important takeaway from the success of China-Russia relations is that the two sides rise above the model of military and political alliance in the Cold War era.”

Zhao suggested that China and Russia are able to collaborate so effectively because the countries and their leadership “commit themselves to developing a new model of international relations.”

Bloomberg reported that Zhao made this statement during a briefing Friday in Beijing.

Zhao emphasized that the “model” relationship between China and Russia is predicated on the two countries’ hesitance to cause confrontation between other nations and respecting the sovereignty of other states.

He added that this relationship broke with the “Cold War mentality” displayed by countries allied with the U.S. through geographic blocs like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

President Joe Biden warned Chinese President Xi Jinping in March that there would be “implications and consequences” if the Chinese government provided any form of material support to their Russian counterparts over the invasion of Ukraine.

To date there has been no indication that China has supported the Russian invasion or helped the country skirt the Western sanctions that torpedoed its economy, but the Chinese government has provided “rhetorical support” for Russia by repeating its propaganda.

The Chinese government also repeatedly states that it will stand by the “no limits” relationship agreement that Presidents Putin and Xi agreed to at a private meeting between the two heads-of-staet before the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

During this meeting, Xi and Putin agreed to support each other in their respective efforts to expand their borders to include the independent nations of Taiwan and Ukraine, respectively.

The very existence and basis of this dynamic calls into question the validity of claims recently made by Zhao that Russia and China avoid confrontation with other nations on the international stage.

The reality is that the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Chinese government’s blatant hostility towards Taiwan indicate that both nations are, in fact, dedicated to the military conquest of sovereign nations while meddling in their affairs.