It took some time, but in the end the long-awaited conversation between the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, arrived yesterday, Wednesday. In Kyiv, they were waiting for this communication since in March the Chinese leader staged in Moscow his friendship with the head of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin. In Beijing, the call serves to give impetus to the peace plan for Ukraine that it published in February and thus try to improve its image. After the communication, he announced that he will send a special representative there to find a solution to this crisis.
At the moment, in Western countries yesterday they took the contact for granted. Two months ago they had welcomed the 12-point peace plan with skepticism because of the complicity of Russia and China, which has become Moscow’s main trading partner after the breakdown of relations with Western countries.
“We encourage any dialogue that can contribute to the resolution of the conflict in accordance with the fundamental interests of Ukraine and international law,” they said yesterday from the French presidency. And they emphasized that this was a message that President Emmanuel Macron had conveyed to Beijing during his state visit to China at the beginning of April. In this visit, he urged Xi Jinping to “make Russia come to its senses”.
From Spain, the Minister of Defence, Margarita Robles, described the conversation as “magnificent news” and underlined the importance of “opening up any peace scenario”.
The United States also found the conversation positive, but without firing rockets. “It’s good news, but I don’t think we know at this point if it will lead to some kind of significant movement, plan or proposal for peace,” the spokesman for the White House Security Council, John Kirby, told the press.
The call, which took place at the initiative of Ukraine, would be the first known contact between the two leaders since Russia sent its troops to Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Kyiv and its NATO allies rejected the Chinese peace proposal because it favored Russian advances in the region. Moscow also ruled out Chinese mediation, though justifying it on “Kiev’s position,” which leaves no other way but to continue the fighting, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this month.
But Zelenski celebrated China’s willingness to get involved in a conflict it has so far not condemned. And he invited Xia to visit Ukraine, hoping that China’s position would be more favorable to Kyiv. European Union leaders also suggested Xi hang up the phone, saying if he really wanted to work for peace he needed to engage in dialogue with the two warring parties.
Zelenski reported yesterday on Twitter that the conversation with Xiva will be “long and significant”. It lasted nearly an hour, a spokesman said.
For his part, the Chinese president told him that “negotiation” is the only way out of the conflict, state television CCTV reported. “China has always sided with peace and its fundamental position is to promote peace dialogue,” Xi assured.
Meanwhile, Russia applauded the Chinese initiative and blamed Ukraine for a lack of dialogue. “We welcome the willingness of the Chinese side to make an effort to push forward the negotiation,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. And he assured that Russia sees many “coincidences” between the Russian approach and China’s peace proposal.
The spokeswoman assured that “the problem does not lie in the lack of good plans”. “The regime in Kyiv has shown its rejection of any sensible initiative aimed at a political and diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian crisis and has conditioned its eventual consent to negotiate with ultimatums and unrealistic demands,” Zakharova assured.
Previously, Beijing had already assured that it called on the parties to the conflict to create conditions for dialogue. His Foreign Minister, Qin Gang, told his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, two weeks ago in Moscow, that there was no panacea to get out of this crisis, but that, in any case, it will be found through of negotiations “All parties must begin to build up mutual trust and create the conditions for peace talks to end the conflict,” Qin said.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying posted on Twitter yesterday that China will send a special representative to Ukraine and other countries to discuss “with all parties” a political solution to the crisis.
