The American president Joe Biden dismissed China’s proposal for a solution to the war in Ukraine, while Beijing is set to become an important crossroads on the fate of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev with next week’s state visit by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko – a faithful ally of the Kremlin – and that of French President Emmanuel Macron in early April.
“If Putin likes him, how can it be a good plan?” Biden cut short when asked about the 12-point document promoted by President Xi Jinping, which calls for a “political solution”, the lifting of sanctions and urges everyone to support Russia and Ukraine in the resumption of “direct dialogue” as quickly as possible.
“There are advantages only for Russia in that plan”, the US president reiterated in an interview with Abc News, underlining that the idea that China “negotiates the outcome of a totally unjust war for Ukraine is not rational “.
While, he assured, if the Dragon were to supply weapons to Russia, the US would “respond”. After the rejection by the EU, the US and NATO, even the Ukrainian leaders have expressed clearer judgments. In the document “there are various elements on which we agree, but at least one on which we do not, and that is the request for an end to unilateral sanctions”, noted Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. Full rejection for presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak: “If you claim to be a global player, you are not offering an unrealistic plan. You are not betting on an aggressor who has violated international law and who will lose the war. It is not far-sighted. China, the window of opportunity is not infinite,” he tweeted.
ANSA Agency
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, welcomed some elements of the Chinese move but clarified that only the country in which a war is being fought should be the initiator of a peace plan, still aiming to meet with Xi and noting that Beijing’s plan seemed to demonstrate that “there is respect for our territorial integrity and security issues”.
However, the Dragon does not appear willing to give up the “limitless” partnership with Russia. But it also claims its diplomatic neutrality. Lukashenko, the Belarusian president, who announced yesterday that he had “a long conversation” with Putin, will be in Beijing from February 28 to March 2 “at Xi’s invitation”, reported a note from Chinese diplomats. The staunch Moscow ally and the CCP leader forged a strategic partnership when they met in the Uzbek city of Samarkand in September 2022.
A year ago, Belarus allowed Kremlin troops to use its territory as a springboard to assault Kiev. Lukashenko, at the beginning of the month, said that his country was ready to do it again, fueling new fears in Ukraine.
On the opposite front, however, Macron will be in China “at the beginning of April”: he has invited Beijing to “press Russia” to end the war. Peace is possible only if “aggression is stopped, troops withdrawn and the territorial sovereignty of Ukraine and its people respected.
The fact that China is engaging in peace efforts is a good thing”. But the head of the Elysée also asked “not to give Russia arms”. The EU is also committed to keeping an open diplomatic channel with the Dragon: as announced by the Chinese Ministry of Defense, Thursday in Brussels there was a meeting between a delegation of its military and that of NATO, thus restarting “dialogue and institutional consultations” for the first time since the outbreak of the Ukrainian war and the Covid pandemic.