Global Courant 2023-05-13 18:43:45
A Ukrainian soldier pilots a drone at a training camp during the Russia-Ukraine war in Donetsk, Ukraine, on May 11, 2023.
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The Biden administration and US allies are in doubt China could play a decisive role in ending the war in Ukraine, given Beijing’s tendency to play it safe in the diplomatic arena and its reluctance to alienate Russia, Western diplomats and former US officials say.
While China has made a peace proposal and plans to send an envoy to the region next week, there’s no indication it’s ready to wade in as a full-fledged mediator, with all the risks involved, former US officials and two Western diplomats. said.
“We are skeptical,” said a Western diplomat. “They have been anything but neutral in their language.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping did not speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy until more than a year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Beijing continues to repeat Moscow’s talking points about the causes of the conflict and avoids using the word “war” when referring to the fighting in Ukraine.
The Biden Administration wants to give the impression that he is at least open to the possibility of a positive Chinese role, but expectations remain low, said Evan Medeiros, a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service who was a senior advisor for Asia until then President Obama.
“I think they are rightly skeptical about the role that China could actually play,” Medeiros said.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said earlier this month that the US would welcome any effort by China to help end the war, saying “if they are willing to play a positive role in trying to bring peace, that would be a good thing.”
But he added that China should support the principle that “there is a victim and an aggressor” in the conflict. “And I have to say that until recently it was very unclear if China accepted that basic principle. I’m still not sure if they do, but at least President Xi has had a talk with President Zelenskyy now.”
China’s position on the conflict in Ukraine “is consistent and clear,” said Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington.
“China is committed to advancing peace talks and bringing about a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis,” he said, adding: “Both President Putin and President Zelenskyy welcomed China’s important role in restoring the peace and resolve the crisis by diplomatic means.”
During talks in Vienna on Tuesday and Wednesday between President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan and China’s senior foreign policy adviser Wang Yi, the US side “pressed for some constructive engagement with Ukraine” and reiterated the US concerns that Beijing should refrain from providing military aid to Russia, senior government officials told reporters.
Avoid risk
China is increasingly establishing itself as a powerful state with global reach, but its approach to diplomacy remains cautious. There is no precedent that it has plunged into difficult peace negotiations, risked its reputation or fooled a key partner like Russia, former US officials said.
“There is no doubt that they are becoming increasingly ambitious in their diplomacy, as they are in many other areas of world affairs,” said Jacob Stokes, who served on then-Vice President Biden’s national security staff in the Obama administration. “The question is, how ambitious and what costs and burdens are they willing to bear?” said Stokes, now a senior fellow for the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security think tank.
For years, Washington hoped that Beijing could use its influence to push Pyongyang to make concessions to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
“That was the view,” said Victor Cha, who participated the six-party talks on nuclear power more than a decade ago including the US, Japan, Russia and the two Koreas. “It never really worked.”
China’s diplomacy is designed to avoid risk, he said, and Beijing’s approach to talks with North Korea has been to invite the sides to meet without trying to shape the content of the negotiations.
“If you want to become a mediator, you have to focus much more on the success of the negotiations, rather than just creating a place where people can talk,” Cha said.
The six-party talks, held in six rounds between 2003 and 2009, “were a revealing experience about what really motivated China,” said Medeiros of Georgetown.
China was unwilling to take any substantial action against North Korea over its nuclear weapons “because, ultimately, they cared far more about preserving their influence in the Korean Peninsula and keeping North Korea as a buffer state than they ever cared about non-proliferation.” ” he said.
China’s interests in North Korea were not aligned with those of the US or its allies, Medeiros said. “I think in the end we will find the same thing with Russia.”
How Beijing calculates its interests in Ukraine remains an open question. Some experts argue that China wants the fighting to stop in the interests of the global economy and to ensure that Russia, its partner, does not suffer a devastating defeat.
It is also uncertain “what influence or pressure Beijing would be willing to exert against Moscow to end this conflict and what benefit would they gain if they did,” said a senior Senate aide.
Some Western officials said China could play a more limited but useful role in encouraging Russia to hold ceasefire talks, without necessarily negotiating detailed proposals or pressuring Moscow to compromise.
At the moment, neither Russia nor Ukraine seem ready for peace talks or ceasefire talks, as both sides believe they can make gains on the battlefield. CIA director William Burns said in February that Russian President Vladimir Putin believes his forces could exhaust Ukraine into a war of attrition and that Western support for Kiev will fade over time.
Ukraine’s ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, said in Washington last week that her government is “ready to work with anyone willing to help us.”
“I think we should focus – and that is our goal – not how to get Russia to the table, but how to get them out of Ukraine,” Markarova said at an event organized by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank.
When asked if Ukraine supports the prospect of China as a peace broker, she said: “We don’t need a broker. Nobody needs a broker to help Russia escape Ukraine, you know?”
– Abigail Williams and Andrea Mitchell contributed.
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