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Ukraine, Russia, and the United States expressed their desire to hold talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the same time. At the same time, a number of world media reports that the head of the People’s Republic of China may visit Moscow in the coming week, FREEDOM informs.
The head of China is now literally on edge. World leaders openly say they would like to meet with Xi. However, the President of the People’s Republic of China remains silent – all announcements of possible future visits and calls by Xi Jinping come out of the press. According to experts, one of the reasons for such a game by Beijing was Ukraine. It was expected that the country would completely reject China’s peace plan, but instead, officials in Kyiv said it was an area for discussion. Now China’s international partners are pushing it to continue this course.
“They announced a peace plan – come on, be mediators. Accordingly, not only to communicate with Putin, but also with Zelensky. “Talk to Zelensky, Xi Jinping. Zelensky is waiting for your call,” is now the key narrative that Western countries will promote. Plus, it partially breaks the second stage of the Chinese game. After all, to supply weapons to Russia is actually to oppose one’s own peace plan. Accordingly, things are not going according to plan here either. That is why we now see rather vague information about whether Xi Jinping is going to Moscow or not,” said political scientist Oleg Sahakyan.
One of the desired diplomatic goals of Ukraine is to hold negotiations with Xi before the visit to Moscow, thus Kyiv will take the initiative in this process. But if the trip does take place, its outcome is currently difficult to predict. There are two opinions among experts. Some believe that Xi is offering Putin a contract on military support. According to others, all this is an attempt to raise the stakes in order to get a series of preferences from the West. Beijing will not go for a real military alliance with Moscow because of too high economic consequences.
“The only thing that covers a whole series of these risks is the possibility of profiting on the Taiwanese route. That’s why this whole China game right now is all about Taiwan. Russia is an object of China’s interests. This is an asset in order to first of all extract concessions from the West in the direction of Taiwan. And here Biden will now stimulate Xi Jinping to talk, spreading these chessboards. Thus, China becomes in a more vulnerable and weak position in these negotiations. And the United States can already outline certain red lines regarding Taiwan, beyond which it is better for China not to cross,” Oleg Sahakyan believes.
Currently, China is in a difficult diplomatic position, because it does not want to allow Russia to be defeated, just as it cannot intervene in the war. At the same time, the ambitions of its leader do not allow standing aside. For one of the main geopolitical players, this is a matter of image.
“China wants its hands untied in the future. They believe that the 21st century will be China’s century. And that is why they do not want to be tied down by a younger and weaker partner. Russia is in such a weak position after a year of intense war with Ukraine that it could collapse. And it is not in the interests of China for it to fall apart. That is why they need to somehow support the Russians, but in such a way as not to anger the West and prevent the West from introducing sanctions against China, if there is direct participation and the supply of weapons,” explained the diplomat, foreign policy and security expert of the Center for Defense Strategies Oleksandr Khara.
According to foreign media reports, Xi Jinping may visit Moscow on March 21. Online negotiations with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, are predicted by the publication to be held on approximately the same date.
