Joe Biden, simplifying, now he has two problems: hang up the Chinese; keep the Western bloc united and international support for the Ukrainian resistance intact. The American president restarts from here, after four days of speeches, symbolic gestures and renewed promises between Kiev and Warsaw.
Saturday February 18, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Chinese foreign policy plenipotentiary Wang Yion the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. The meeting went badly, very badly indeed.
According to Administration sources, Blinken would have proposed to the interlocutor to resume a “constructive” discussion after the crisis of the spy balloons. At the top of the agenda, the war in Ukraine. The US secret services suspect that China is supplying Putin with material useful for the conflict on the ground. At the moment we still don’t know what exactly the intelligence is holding. Are we talking about weapons? Or technology for civilian use, but also adaptable for a conflict, such as drones for example? Washington should reveal it in the next few days. Biden, however, had entrusted Blinken with one last attempt: let’s send a message to Xi Jinping through Wang Yi, one of his most trusted collaborators; let’s see if the Chinese leader is really interested in mediating between Putin and Zelensky.
The response, however, was disappointing: Wang Yi actually didn’t even take Blinken’s requests into consideration. After that he headed for Moscow to anticipate the contents of the “peace plan” which should be publicly launched by Xi Jinping, tomorrow 24 February, on the anniversary of Putin’s aggression.
At this point the White House has no more doubts: Beijing has positioned itself in the field of Moscow; his “peace initiative” is nothing more than a rescue maneuver, a political cover in favor of Putin. There will therefore be no mediation, also because not only Blinken, but also Volodymyr Zelensky had sought contact with Wang Yi. Attempt failed.
The Chinese attitude, as interpreted by the Americans, eliminates any margin for negotiation. Now all possible channels of communication with Putin are closed. Both French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, as well as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have renounced.
Perhaps, they think in the Oval Office, there is only one way to try and stop the slide towards a war scenario without a horizon: a new direct contact between Biden and Xi Jinping, given that the positive effect of the last face-to-face, on November 14, 2022 in Bali, it seems to have evaporated.
The other issue involves Europe. In Kiev and Warsaw, Biden lavished praise on the unity shown by EU and NATO countries. True: he wasn’t taken for granted and the US leader took the credit for it. But there is a legitimate question that fuels the concern, the widespread tiredness in European public opinion. Is it possible that Biden and his advisers are unable to formulate at least one scheme, a draft on which to base the negotiation?
By now we know the public version of Biden: «It’s up to Putin to take the first step; he is the one who started the war and he is the one who must end it». But there is also another explanation that leaks out in a completely informal way. Biden, Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan have realized that the European bloc appears united as far as it comes to keeping the Ukrainian resistance standing. But there are different ideas, even very distant ones, on the possible outcome of the conflict.
The Eastern flank, led by Poland and the Baltic countries, wants Zelensky’s total victory and, symmetrically, Putin’s defeat: a hard lesson that is worth for future reference. In concrete terms, it means: removing the Russians from all the occupied territories, including Crimea, illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014. France and Germany, on the other hand, do not consider it realistic to imagine a «regain” total. And the Biden administration thinks so too, if only because it believes Putin could respond devastatingly in the event of a massive offensive against Crimea. Furthermore, it would be difficult to force the Russians to move out of the naval base of Sevastopol, on the Black Sea, assigned in concession by the Ukrainian government in 2010 and until 2042. Whatever the formula elaborated by Biden, there would be only one certain result: the division of the front European.
Not counting, of course, the effects in Ukraine. Zelensky has fluctuated a lot, but now it is certain that his army will take back the whole country. But how would the ruling group in Kiev behave if Biden asked to relinquish control of Crimea? Would it stay united like today? And finally, how would Congress and the American public react? Even in the United States, an extremist and a more open-minded line are confronting one another.
The risk of dangerous fractures, therefore, is too high and on too many fronts. That’s why Biden’s message is clear for now. The war goes on, with only one goal: to put the Ukrainians in the best conditions to negotiate. If and when there will be a negotiation.