China, pushing Ukraine cease-fire, gets cool reception in Europe Analysis by The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal has published an analysis arguing that European officials are rebuffing Beijing’s efforts to split the West. Caliber.Az reprints this article.

The Chinese envoy dispatched to push Beijing’s peace plan for Ukraine carried a clear message: U.S. allies in Europe should assert their autonomy and urge an immediate cease-fire, leaving Russia in possession of the parts of its smaller neighbor that it now occupies, according to Western officials familiar with talks in capitals across the continent.

Diplomat Li Hui, who has visited Kyiv, Warsaw, Berlin, Paris and Brussels this month, urged European governments to view China as an economic alternative to Washington and said they should move quickly to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine before it spreads, those officials said. Li was due to travel to Moscow on Friday.

The officials, while saying it is too early to dismiss Beijing’s efforts, questioned China’s ability to act as an honest broker in any negotiations given how closely it is aligned with Moscow. The officials said they didn’t think peace would be possible until Russian troops withdraw from Ukraine.

China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

“We explained that freezing the conflict is not in the interest of the international community unless there is withdrawal of Russian troops,” a diplomat who spoke to Li said. The diplomat said Li was told “it’s impossible to split Europe from America” and that Europe wouldn’t withdraw support from Ukraine.

“They are probably testing the unity of the West and trying to show initiative,” another diplomat said.

China’s main interests appeared to be to ensure that Russia doesn’t lose the war and that Moscow refrains from using nuclear weapons, another said.

The war in Ukraine—which has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands of others—has emerged as a central front in a deepening rivalry between the democratic West on one hand and Russia and China, two of the world’s most powerful authoritarian states, on the other.

China has become a critical economic lifeline for Russia as it is hit by Western sanctions. Beijing has been making large purchases of Russian energy, and Chinese exports to Russia of goods such as computer chips and other electronics that have civilian and military uses have risen significantly since Moscow invaded Ukraine last year.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping in March visited Moscow and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, soon after China released a peace proposal for Ukraine. Both men smiled and referred to each other as a “dear friend.” Xi told Putin that their countries have “many similar goals” and that “with our cooperation and interaction, we will definitely achieve these goals.”

European capitals have said China’s peace proposal and its Russian embrace demonstrated that Beijing doesn’t hold a neutral position on the conflict and sides with Moscow.

China’s 12-point peace proposal, released in February, calls for a cease-fire and peace talks but offers few details. While offering what appears to be a veiled warning to Moscow not to escalate the conflict by using nuclear weapons, it also contains oblique criticisms of the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Its first point is “respecting the sovereignty of all countries,” but it doesn’t call on Russia to withdraw from Ukraine or mention Russia’s aggression toward its neighbour.

China has courted European nations in an effort to weaken the U.S.-led pushback against Beijing’s widening global clout. After previously taking a softer approach, Europe in recent years has moved closer to U.S. positions on economic security and trade, and become increasingly wary of China.

The Biden administration, while foreseeing a role for China in an eventual negotiated settlement, has been skeptical of Beijing’s intentions as a peacemaker due to its close relationship with Moscow. The White House in March tried to head off an expected call from Beijing for a cease-fire, with a spokesman saying such a move would serve as “effectively the ratification of Russian conquest.”

Europe is also broadly aligned with Washington in the view that no peace can be achieved in Ukraine without the withdrawal of Russian troops, and its governments are concerned by Xi’s ties with Putin, Western officials said.

European diplomats said they sought to convey three key messages during their meetings with Li: that China must continue to pressure Russia against using nuclear weapons, that it not supply military aid to Russia and that it condemn Moscow’s aggression. They also asked Li for Chinese backing of the international efforts to secure the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest such facility in Europe, which is occupied by Russia.

Li, Beijing’s special representative on Eurasian affairs and a former Chinese ambassador to Russia, has visited Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany and Belgium, the seat of European Union institutions and NATO. Diplomats from several of those countries said they coordinated closely to make sure Li got the same message from European allies.

The French official who met with Li this week told the Chinese diplomat that France was convinced China could play a constructive role in pursuing a just and lasting peace in Ukraine, France’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The official emphasized the need to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and said France and the EU were determined to support Ukraine over the long term.

Poland’s Foreign Ministry said following Li’s visit to Warsaw that the deputy minister who met the Chinese diplomat told him “Poland is concerned about Beijing’s declarations about striving to strengthen bilateral relations with Russia, the aggressor state.”

The pushback from Europe comes as the U.S. and China see a possible window for repairing ties damaged by the discovery and shooting down of a suspected Chinese spy balloon earlier this year. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo met with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Wentao, in Washington on Thursday, the first such meeting to take place in Washington under the Biden administration.

The Department of Commerce said the two had candid and substantive discussions about the U.S.-China commercial relationship, and that Raimondo raised concerns about Beijing’s recent actions against US companies that operate in China. China’s Commerce Ministry said Wang expressed concern about the U.S.’s economic and trade policy toward China.

EU officials have said the war in Ukraine is complicating their relationship with China, which hasn’t condemned Moscow’s invasion.

“Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine is making the context for the EU-China relationship more complex,” the EU’s trade chief, Valdis Dombrovskis, said Thursday. He said he conveyed that message to Wang, China’s commerce minister, during a meeting last month.

The EU is preparing an economic security strategy, due next month, that appears set to bring the bloc closer to the US in its approach to China.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said earlier this year that Europe needs to be more assertive in defending its security and economic interests amid rising risks from China and raised the possibility of EU-wide controls on outbound investment.

The EU is aiming to take the lessons learned from its heavy dependency on Russian natural gas, which Moscow has weaponized against the bloc during the Ukraine war, to reconsider its reliance on other strategic sectors, from semiconductors to critical raw materials, European officials have said.

EU and U.S. officials are set to discuss trade relations with China during a high-level meeting of the Trade and Technology Council in northern Sweden next week.

The EU’s competition chief, Margrethe Vestager, who will attend the meeting in Sweden, said Thursday that Europe is now following some of its Western allies in taking a more cautious approach toward China. She said the bloc wants to protect trade with China that it doesn’t see as risky and to be more precise in identifying the areas that pose concerns for Europe’s economic security.

“When it comes to technology, there are very clear risks stemming from China,” Vestager said. She cited China’s integration of civil and military functions, risks related to human rights and what she referred to as a misuse of technology as some of the bloc’s concerns.

Europe’s newfound assertiveness on Beijing is born in part from a fear that the bloc could be left behind as the U.S. and China redraw geopolitical relations.

“If we do not assess the risks from a European perspective, then the dividing lines will be drawn either in Beijing or Washington,” Vestager said.