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There are currently no results of the political tour of China’s special representative Li Hui, but there is a scandal related to the interpretation of how Li Hui allegedly communicated with European diplomats. This opinion was expressed today, May 28, by political scientist, expert on Central and Eastern European countries Ivan Preobrazhenskyi, commenting on the manipulations that Li Hui put forward to MEPs demanding that Russia recognize the occupied territories of Ukraine as part of the FREEDOM TV channel.
“Practically, the results, judging by everything, are not great. But no one expected them, it was said that the Chinese representative would make the first tour, visit all interested countries, their allies, understand the mood, voice the Chinese proposals and return to China to further discuss it with Xi Jinping. China, like Russia, is an authoritarian state, and decisions will not be made otherwise than by the first person on such important issues,” said the political scientist.
He recalled that there was a scandal and The Wall Street Journal reported that the Chinese diplomat allegedly offered European politicians in a strict form.
“Apparently, he did not propose. I tend to believe the statements made by the official Ukrainian side, the Europeans. China in this sense, we know that Chinese diplomacy follows this way – a neat, sometimes not even neat, tough statement, then it is necessarily denied. The truth is somewhere in the middle. I can’t rule out that he wasn’t hinting to someone, pretending that he doesn’t speak English well, for example, or something along those lines. That is, he issued ambiguous phrases that European diplomats could understand as a proposal to leave the occupied territories under Russian control and conclude some kind of peace agreement. I am sure that he did not directly say this to anyone. And he did not strictly insist on this. Now China’s position is not such that it needs it,” Preobrazhensky said.
Also, according to the expert, this scandal could certainly have been artificially created.
“Recent meetings, especially the “Sevens”, clearly demonstrated that Western leaders are not ready to accept Chinese proposals so far, are in principle quite harsh against China, are ready to fight back against Chinese expansion in the world, accordingly, it is possible that such a statement became part of this . Some words of the Chinese diplomat could certainly be interpreted in a similar way. Plus, there are politicians in the EU who categorically state that China’s mediation cannot be accepted, China is not a conscientious mediator in this situation,” he says.
And there is another problem — the position of French President Emmanuel Macron and people like him, who insist that China should be chosen as a mediator.
“Therefore, it is possible that some of the European government officials slightly thickened their colors and allowed themselves to comment on this story to American journalists, because he believes that China should not be allowed to participate in the mediation mission,” – summed up Ivan Preobrazhenskyi.
It should be noted that diplomats from Warsaw, Berlin, Paris and Brussels do not confirm that China’s special representative Li Hui expressed a demand to leave occupied Ukrainian territories to Russia, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. Responding to the publication of The Wall Street Journal that the alleged special representative of China in European capitals called for an immediate ceasefire and recognition of the occupied Ukrainian territories by Russia, Kuleba noted that he contacted partners and did not receive confirmation of this information.
