High-level Ukraine peace talks hosted by Saudi Arabia wrapped up this weekend yielding little progress in ending the war, but they did focus attention on one global power broker: China.
In the view of Ukraine, Saudi Arabia and China itself, merely having a Beijing delegation at the summit was a major cause for optimism. China had skipped the last Ukraine-related meeting in Denmark, but showed up in Saudi Arabia despite Russia, its ally, explicitly not being invited.
Its attendance shows China supports “substantive efforts” to end the war “through negotiation and diplomacy,” said Victor Gao, a prominent Chinese political analyst with strong links to the ruling Communist Party. “China will listen carefully to any idea or proposal” that is “helpful to the peaceful settlement of the war.”
Aug. 6, 202300:16
On Monday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the Saudi event had “further consolidated international consensus,” Reuters reported. It did not elaborate on what that consensus was. And the central problem for all of these peace talks is that in reality there is none.
But others are deeply skeptical of China’s ability, or perhaps even desire, to mediate a conflict in which Ukraine’s and Russia’s demands remain diametrically opposed. They also question Beijing’s motives in attending a conference led by the Global South.
Someone looking for cracks in China’s “no-limits” partnership with Russia would have been rebutted last week after almost a dozen of the countries’ ships took part in an exercise in the Bering Sea between Russia and Alaska that Moscow said simulated blowing up an enemy submarine.
Still, China recently spoke out against the treatment of five of its citizens who were denied entry into Russia despite having visas.
With Russia and Ukraine still very far from agreeing to any sort of deal, China was likely burnishing its credentials among non-Western countries it is seeking to influence if not lead, according to Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at SOAS University of London.
For Beijing, the meeting was all about building “engagement with the Global South, rather than trying to find an actual solution” to the war, he said, referring to non-Western nations in the Middle East, Africa, South America and parts of Asia.
“If they seriously want to find a solution, would they really just be following the lead of the Saudis,” Tsang added, “when Xi Jinping could be doing shuttle diplomacy between Moscow and Kyiv?”
Russia, which wasn’t invited to the talks, hit out at the negotiations, with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova calling them “nothing but a meaningless ultimatum to Russia, aimed at prolonging hostilities.”
The summit in the Red Sea port of Jeddah involved 42 nations. The United States and other Western countries attended, but it was seen as more of an attempt by Ukraine to court nations outside Washington’s sphere of influence.
“We are not looking at these talks as generating any concrete deliverables,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters Wednesday. Instead it was “a chance for a number of countries around the world” to hear directly from Ukraine “about the horrors their country has suffered at the hands of Russian aggression.”
They had “an extremely honest, open conversation” and “very productive consultations,” Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a statement Sunday.
Ukraine has presented its own peace plan — in effect calling for nothing short of total Ukrainian victory. Russia has shown no sign that it will ever accept that.
Yermak did not detail China’s contributions directly. But Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Friday the news that China was sending a delegation to the talks was “a super breakthrough.”
China has indeed been flexing its diplomatic muscles in recent years, brokering a deal earlier this year to restore relations between arch rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran. It also sent Li Hui, tasked with being its envoy on the Russia-Ukraine war, on a tour of Europe in June, albeit yielding few results. It was Li, a senior diplomat with decades of experience in the then-Soviet Union and its remnants in the years after its collapse, who journeyed to Saudi Arabia with his delegation this weekend.
Though China has signaled its desire to act as a mediator on the Russia-Ukraine war, President Xi Jinping has also publicly thrown his support behind his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Chinese officials have blamed NATO for tensions leading to the war, while criticizing the U.S. for prolonging it.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
