Chinese President Xi Jinping will arrive in Moscow, the capital of Russia, on Monday for his first state visit to the country since the start of the war in Ukraine: he is expected to stay there for three days, until Wednesday. Chinese diplomacy he said that Xi’s will be a “journey for friendship”, a “journey for cooperation” but also a “journey for peace”.
Also due to a certain insistence on the question of peace, for some time there has been talk of the possibility that Xi Jinping could have enough influence over Russian President Vladimir Putin to convince him to start negotiations on the war. There has also been talk of a possible phone call from Xi to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which would be the first between the two since the beginning of the Russian invasion. It is a scenario that cannot be entirely excluded, but at the moment rather unlikely: numerous signals that have arrived in recent days seem to show that Xi intends above all to express support for his ally Putin and to strengthen the ties of friendship between the two countries, and little more.
Xi will probably try to promote the “12-point plan” that China made public last month, a document describing the country’s position on the war in Ukraine and which Western media have dubbed with a certain amount of optimism “peace plan”. In reality, that document does not propose any concrete steps in favor of negotiation, except by enunciating some very general principles.
China, while defining itself as neutral, however continues to refuse to define what is happening in Ukraine as a “war” (official documents speak of a “crisis” in Ukraine), continues to blame the West for the Russian invasion and he has never condemned the atrocities and war crimes committed by Russian soldiers against civilians in Ukraine.
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As noted for example the New York Timesin recent days even the Chinese state media, which are controlled by the Communist Party, have tried to lower the level of expectations on the possibility that big news from a diplomatic point of view will come from Xi’s visit to Russia.
Xi also he wrote an editorial in the official Russian government media, the newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta and the news agency Ria Novosti (it is also a custom in Europe, for visits by important heads of state). In the article, which is very long, only one paragraph is dedicated to the war in Ukraine, and it states that “complex problems have no simple solution” and that “as long as all sides (…) maintain a dialogue and pragmatic consultations, fair and rational, there will surely be a reasonable way to resolve the crisis in Ukraine.”
Furthermore, to intervene in a concrete way in favor of diplomacy, Xi should tend to convince Putin to accept a ceasefire, making him understand, for example, that China’s support could disappear if the war continues for much longer: from what has been seen so far, this is a rather unlikely hypothesis.
Also for this reason, Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia could above all serve to strengthen existing ties with Russia, and confirm that China will maintain the current level of support, especially economic and rhetorical, which it has already shown during this war year.
There is also the opposite possibility, much feared by US intelligence and government, that China could increase the level of support for Russia, for example by offering more economic aid, or even sending lethal weapons. which, however, has so far been denied by the Chinese government.