China on Wednesday criticised the expansion of economic sanctions against Russia, saying that they were unlikely to solve the Ukraine crisis and that they had the potential to harm average people as well as the interests of Beijing.

“The position of the Chinese government is that we believe that sanctions have never been a fundamental and effective way to solve problems, and China always opposes any illegal unilateral sanctions,” Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, said at a regular press briefing on Wednesday.

“Since 2011, the United States has imposed sanctions on Russia more than 100 times, but we can all think about it calmly,” she added.

“Have US sanctions solved the problem?”

Russia has cultivated close ties with China. Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, met President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia at the Olympic Games in Beijing this month, and they declared in a joint statement that their friendship had “no limits”.

Still, China offered an equivocal response to Putin’s moves against Ukraine this week, neither criticising nor endorsing his decision to recognise two separatist enclaves and order the deployment of troops.