Former Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., told Newsmax on Wednesday that a communique from Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping amounts to a ''declaration of war'' on U.S. and Western values.
''I went back and read the communique that Putin and President Xi [of] China issued in their meeting in Beijing at the beginning of February,'' Lieberman, a Democratic vice presidential candidate in 2000, said on ''Spicer & Co.'' ''It is chilling. I mean, it is a declaration of ideological and geopolitical war against the U.S. essentially, and against our beliefs.''
The joint statement by the leaders said, in part, that democratic nations were using that and human rights as a ''pretext'' to interfere in other nations.
''The sides [Russia and China] believe that the advocacy of democracy and human rights must not be used to put pressure on other countries,'' the statement read.
''They oppose the abuse of democratic values and interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states under the pretext of protecting democracy and human rights, and any attempts to incite divisions and confrontation in the world.''
The statement concludes with Russia and China pledging to work with India and other Asian nations and promote cooperation in the areas of ''public health, sustainable development, combating terrorism and countering transnational crime.''
Lieberman said that with that alliance in mind, the United States should be careful that China might become emboldened to take its own military action.
''They got to be careful that China doesn't take this moment to take some kind of aggressive action, probably not invading Taiwan, but some action against Taiwan while we're focused on Ukraine,'' Lieberman said.
He said that Putin has done this kind of thing before, most recently by annexing Crimea in 2014.
He also said that the administration of President Joe Biden should have enacted stronger sanctions sooner to try to deter Putin from moving militarily.
''Because Putin went in with his power and seized Crimea, which was part of Ukraine, a violation of international law and basically got away with it,'' Lieberman said.
''He’s built some funds now to back up exactly those banks President Biden sanctioned yesterday, so we really got to cut off, and we better get our European allies to join us, Putin's economy from the world economy to the extent we can. He's got China now as an ally to help them out, or else he's going to just go ahead with impunity.''
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