Tokyo | China’s President Xi Jinping has backed Russia’s stand-off with the West over Ukraine and accused the United States and its allies, including Australia, of increasing the risk of an arms race in an extraordinary show of solidarity with Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Winter Olympics.

Mr Xi, seizing on the Games in Beijing to try to bolster China’s diplomatic standing, also met with the presidents of Egypt, Serbia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan on Saturday as territorial tensions in Europe and Asia-Pacific forge deeper alliances between enemies of the US.