WASHINGTON – While Xi Jinping, The Chinese leader prepares to meet the Russian president Vladimir Putin In Moscow, Chinese officials have framed his trip as a peacekeeping mission, in which he will try to “play a constructive role in furthering talks” between Russia and Ukraine, a government spokesman in Beijing said.
But US and European authorities are looking at something completely different:
whether Xi will add fuel to the full-scale war Putin started more than a year ago.
US officials say China is still considering the ability to deliver weapons -mainly artillery shells- to Russia for use in Ukraine.
And even a Xi call for a ceasefire would amount to an effort to strengthen Putin’s position on the battlefield, they say, leaving Russia in control of more territory than it did when the invasion began.
A ceasefire would now be “effectively on ratification of the Russian conquest,” White House spokesman John Kirby said Friday.
“In effect, it would recognize Russia’s achievements and its attempt to seize its neighbor’s territory by force, allowing Russian troops to continue occupying sovereign Ukrainian territory.”
“It would be a classic part of China’s playbook,” he added, for Chinese officials to walk out of the meeting stating that “we are the ones calling for an end to the fighting and no one else is doing it.”
In an article published Sunday in a Russian newspaper, Xi wrote that China has continued “efforts to promote reconciliation and peace negotiations.”
Skepticism about one of Xi’s stated goals pervades thinking in Washington and some European capitals.
US intelligence agencies have concluded that China-Russia relations have thorough during the war, even when Russia cut itself off from many other nations.
Both countries continue to hold joint military exercises and Beijing has joined Moscow in regularly denouncing NATO.
China remains a major buyer of Russian oil, which has helped Moscow do so finance his invasion.
Chinese officials have never condemned the invasion.
Instead, they ambiguously stated that all nations must respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
They have collaborated with Russian diplomats to block international statements condemning the war, including at meetings of the group of 20 held in India in February and March.
Though some Chinese officials find Putin’s war destabilizing, they recognize a greater foreign policy priority: the need to support Russia so the two nations can present a united front against their supposed adversary, the United States.
Xi made his point clear when he told an annual policy meeting in Beijing earlier this month that “Western countries, led by the United States, have carried out a containment, encirclement and comprehensive suppression of China, which has entailed serious unprecedented challenges for the development of our country”.
But China remains firmly anchored in the world economy, and Xi and his aides want to avoid being seen as such evil actors on the world stage, especially in the eyes of Europe, one of its main trading partners.
Some analysts say Xi has adopted the peacemaker costume, claiming to be on a mission to end the war to provide cover for efforts to strengthen his partnership with Putin, to which the International Criminal Court formally charged Friday with war crimes in an arrest warrant.
Xi and Putin have great personal affinity and have met 39 times since Xi became China’s leader in 2012.
Putin called Xi a “dear old friend” in an article published in a Chinese newspaper on Sunday, saying the two have enjoyed the “warmest relationship”.
China’s publication last month of a 12-point declaration on general principles on warfare was an attempt to create a smokescreen of neutrality during planning for Xi’s trip, according to some analysts.
“I think China is trying to blur the picture, to say we are not there to support Russia, but to support peace,” said Yun Sun, a Chinese foreign policy scholar at the Stimson Center in Washington.
“There is an inherent need for China to maintain or protect the health of its relationship with Russia,” he said, adding that a senior Chinese official had told him US geopolitics and intransigence were driving the Beijing’s approach to the relationship, not love for Russia.
Sun said China’s recent mediation of an initial diplomatic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran had promoted the idea that China was a peacemaker.
But that situation was totally different from that of the war of Ukraine:
The two Middle Eastern nations had already been in talks for years to try to resume formal diplomacy, and China stepped in as both sides sought a deal.
China is not a close partner of either country and has a very specific economic interest in preventing either from escalating hostilities: it buys huge quantities of oil from both.
When Putin visited Xi in Beijing shortly before the Ukrainian war began in February 2022, their governments proclaimed an “unlimited” partnership in a 5,000-word statement.
The two men met again in September at a security conference in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Xi has not spoken to Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, since the start of the war, much less asked his opinion on the peace talks.
Zelensky has said he will only enter peace talks if Putin withdraws his troops from Ukrainian soil.
This includes the Crimean peninsula, captured by the Russian military in 2014, and the Donbass region, where Russian troops fueled a pro-Russian separatist insurgency earlier that year.
Zelensky said he would like the opportunity to talk to Xi, and some Ukrainian officials are harboring hopes that China will eventually influence Russia to get Putin to withdraw its troops.
But China has not indicated that it will do anything about it.
Thursday, qin bandChinese Foreign Minister, spoke on the phone with Dmytro Kuleba, The Ukrainian foreign minister stressed that the warring parties should “resume peace talks” and “return to the path of political agreement,” according to a Chinese summary of the conversation.
In an interview with the BBC before Xi’s visit was announced, Kuleba said he believed China was unwilling to either arm Russia or achieve peace.
“The visit to Moscow is itself a message, but I don’t think it will have immediate consequences,” he said.
Washington analysts agree.
“I don’t think China can serve as a hub for any peace process in Ukraine,” said Ryan Hass, a former US diplomat to China and White House official who works at the Brookings Institution.
Hass added that China would play a role as part of a signatory group or guarantor of any eventual peace deal and would be essential for Ukraine’s reconstruction.
“I think Zelensky understands that, and that’s why he’s been willing to be so patient with China and with Xi personally,” he said.
European officials have had mixed attitudes towards China, with some prioritizing maintaining trade ties with Beijing.
But China’s alignment with Russia during the war has aroused growing suspicion and hostility in many corners of Europe.
Some officials reacted cautiously to Xi’s Moscow trip announcement on Friday:
they saw it as a further sign of China’s friendship, if not alliance, with Russia, as well as an effort by China to present itself as a mediator in the war.
Wang Yi, China’s top foreign policy official, stressed the need for peace talks at the Munich Security Conference late last month, before inviting Moscow.
He used language that seemed directed at Get away to the European nations of the United States.
“We need to reflect calmly, especially our European friends, on the efforts that need to be made to end the war; what framework should be in place to bring lasting peace to Europe; what role Europe should play in manifesting its strategic autonomy,” he said.
He suggested that Washington wanted the war to continue to further weaken Russia.
“Some forces may not want peace talks to materialize,” he said.
“They don’t care about the life or death of Ukrainians or the damage to Europe. They may have bigger strategic goals than Ukraine itself. This war must not continue.”
But China’s 12-point declaration has not gone down well in Europe.
And many European officials, like their Ukrainian and American counterparts, are convinced that there will be initial talks on a peace deal. at the expense of Ukrainian sovereignty.
Ursula von der LeyenPresident of the European Commission, said that China’s position was anything but neutral.
“This is not a peace plan, but shared principles,” he said of China’s statement.
“You have to see them in a specific context. And that background is that China has taken sides, for example by signing an unlimited friendship agreement just before the Russian invasion of Ukraine started.”
China’s usual denunciations of NATO make European officials’ hair stand on end.
In its position paper, China says that “the security of a region should not be achieved by strengthening or expanding military blocs,” a statement that supports Putin’s claim that he had to invade Ukraine due to threats that included expansion from NATO.
According to Nabila Massrali, spokesman for foreign affairs and security policy of the European Union, the Chinese position “is based on a wrong approach to the so-called ‘legitimate security interests and concerns’ of the parties, which implies a justification of the illegal invasion of Russia and confuses the roles of the aggressor and the victim”.
Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General, put it more simply:
“China doesn’t have much credibility”, especially since “it hasn’t been able to condemn the illegal invasion of Ukraine”.
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.