Russia: Xi Jinping plans a visit to Moscow and a talk with Zelensky | International | The USA Print

Beijing’s diplomatic outpost takes a new step forward to try to stop the war in Ukraine. Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to travel to Moscow next week for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin; Next, the Chinese leader plans to speak virtually for the first time since the conflict with Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky began. The plans of the Chinese president, revealed this Monday by the Reuters agency and the newspaper The Wall Street Journal citing anonymous sources, they have not been confirmed by either the Chinese Foreign Ministry or the Kremlin.

Beijing, which since the Russian invasion more than a year ago has maintained a calculated balance, although leaning towards Moscow, has taken key steps in recent weeks to capitalize on its position as a potential ceasefire negotiator. At the end of February, the Chinese government published a 12-point roadmap for “the political resolution of the Ukrainian crisis.” But the plan was coolly received by the United States, the European Union and NATO.

The Ukrainian leader was sparing in his assessment, but he did affirm that he wanted to meet with Xi Jinping. Ukraine has never reneged on the entry of China, considered an ally of Putin, into the equation to seek a solution to the conflict, provided that the proposal provides for the departure of Russian troops from its territory, reports Luis de Vega from Kharkiv. And that implies an end to the occupation of the Crimean peninsula, in the hands of Moscow since 2014. “We would like to meet with China,” Zelensky commented on the eve of the first anniversary of the war (February 24), while who recognized that the diplomacies of both countries are already in contact regarding the peace plan in Beijing, which does not provide for the departure of Russian troops from Ukraine as a condition. For kyiv, recognition of its territorial integrity is a red line.

“The more countries, especially the societies of those countries, the big, influential ones, think about how to end the war in Ukraine while respecting our sovereignty, with a just peace, the faster this will happen,” Zelensky said. “In general, the fact that China has started talking about Ukraine is very good. They are the first steps and it is not something negative”, he commented, but “we will draw conclusions when we see the details”.

Beijing’s position as a possible facilitator of a truce is not easy. China has never condemned the Russian invasion, has never called the war as such and the Chinese leader sealed an “unlimited” friendship with Putin just three weeks before the Russian tanks crossed the Ukrainian borders. His position, reiterated in the so-called peace plan, has always gravitated around the same principles that the West observes with skepticism: “respect for the sovereignty of all countries” (but without specifying which ones), and at the same time the recognition of the “legitimate interests and security concerns” of all parties.

Meanwhile, Beijing increased its trade ties with Moscow by 34.3% in 2022, according to official figures, but has so far refrained from providing direct military support to Russia, despite fears expressed by the international community. .

Last Tuesday, in his first appearance before the media, the new Chinese Foreign Minister, Qin Gang, assured that international relations would be more stable, multipolar and democratic with Beijing and Moscow working together. “The more unstable the world becomes, the more imperative it will be for China and Russia to move their relations forward,” he said.

China climbed another rung last Friday as a maker of agreements between antagonistic countries, by achieving, thanks to its mediation, the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The trilateral agreement was sealed on Friday in Beijing and signed with a powerful photograph of the head of Chinese diplomacy, Wang Yi, in the center, holding the hands of the Saudi National Security Adviser, Musaid Al Aiban, and the secretary of the Supreme Council of National Security of Iran, Ali Shankhani.

Both countries severed diplomatic ties in 2016 after the storming of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran by an Iranian mob, and the rivalry between the two great Shiite (Iran) and Sunni (Saudi Arabia) powers in the Middle East has had repercussions in conflicts. regional routes that go from Syria to Lebanon, passing through Yemen.

The pact, in turn, has allowed China to stick its chest out in a troubled part of the world where the United States used to rule the roost. After the negotiations and the signing of a trilateral communiqué, Wang Yi assured the press that the thaw talks, held in Beijing, were “a victory of dialogue and peace.” “They bring very good news to an unstable world,” he stressed, according to the official Chinese newspaper. Global Times.

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