Rajan Menon Daniel R DePetris Xi Jinping’s phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskiy was a long time coming, but it should not have come as a surprise. Beijing is on everyone’s shortlist when it comes to prospective peacemakers in Ukraine. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is no exception. “I know I can count on you to bring back Russia to reason and everyone back to the negotiating table,” Macron told the Chinese leader during their meeting in Beijing this month. Though Xi replied that he would call the Ukrainian president, he…
Tag: Russia
Xi-Zelenskiy call may have been prompted by ambassador’s undiplomatic comments
A long awaited phone call between Xi Jinping and Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been cautiously welcomed, but China analysts say the timing suggests it could be partly an act of damage control after controversial comments by China’s ambassador to France. Ambassador Lu Shaye, one of China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats with a history of fiery remarks, sparked outrage across Europe this week when he denied the sovereignty of former Soviet states, saying they “did not have effective status”. The comments were roundly condemned, with several European nations summoning Chinese envoys for rebuke,…
China’s Xi and Ukraine’s Zelensky Hold Talks
Two months after issuing a vague plan for ending the war in Ukraine, China’s leader, a close ally of Vladimir V. Putin, on Wednesday acceded to repeated requests from the Ukrainian president to talk. The one-hour telephone discussion between China’s Xi Jinping and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was the first known contact between the two leaders since Russia invaded Ukraine last year. China’s official account of the discussion was notable for its omission of two words: “Russia” and “war.” It referred instead to the need for a “political settlement…
Xi Jinping to send Chinese peace talks delegation to Ukraine
The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, will send a delegation to Ukraine to hold talks with all parties on resolving the conflict there, after his first phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, since Russia invaded in February 2022. According to Chinese state media, Xi made the offer during a telephone call on Wednesday with Zelenskiy and offered to help facilitate peace talks aimed at achieving a ceasefire as soon as possible. Xi also appeared to pledge China would remain neutral in the conflict, saying Beijing “will neither watch the…
China rows back after envoy denies sovereignty of former Soviet states
Beijing has insisted it respects the status of the independent nations that emerged from the USSR after “totally unacceptable” remarks by China’s ambassador to France questioning the sovereignty of former Soviet states sparked outrage in EU capitals. France and the three Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia were among the members states on Monday to summon China’s envoys to account for the comments made late last week by Lu Shaye, which sparked a wave of outrage across Europe. Lithuania’s foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, said the diplomats would be asked…
Baltic states condemn China envoy’s remarks over sovereignty of ex-Soviet nations
France, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have expressed dismay after China’s ambassador in Paris questioned the sovereignty not only of Ukraine, but all the former Soviet Republics including the Baltic states. Lu Shaye’s remarks in a TV interview late on Friday raise fresh questions about the faith the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has placed in China to act as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine. Lu had been asked whether he considered the peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, part of Ukraine under international law. “Even these…
China Is on Track to Become Nuclear Superpower, Ushering in New Age
WASHINGTON — On the Chinese coast, just 135 miles from Taiwan, Beijing is preparing to start a new reactor the Pentagon sees as delivering fuel for a vast expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal, potentially making it an atomic peer of the United States and Russia. The reactor, known as a fast breeder, excels at making plutonium, a top fuel of atom bombs. The nuclear material for the reactor is being supplied by Russia, whose Rosatom nuclear giant has in the past few months completed the delivery of 25 tons of…
Open secrets: inside the 21 April Guardian Weekly
A major new cache of classified US military documents emerged last week, revealing sensitive western intelligence in areas such as the Ukraine war, Russia and Chinese affairs. But, just as astonishing as the information within the documents was the story of how they emerged. This week we find out how a young, racist gun enthusiast and low-level US national guardsman came to be charged under the Espionage Act, suspected of leaking hundreds of top secret files on the gaming chat server Discord. “A top view of the Pentagon popped up…
Blinken and Top G7 Diplomats Stress Unity on Russia and China
Top diplomats from the United States and the rest of the Group of 7 nations closed a three-day meeting in Japan on Tuesday with a forceful statement of unity against new assertiveness by both Russia and China, drawing a firm line on tight cooperation on security as well as economic issues. The show of unity came after a monthslong diplomatic charm offensive by Xi Jinping, China’s leader, in which he made a point of courting European officials in Beijing and trying to peel them away from the United States. The…
Lavrov’s Brazil visit highlights Lula’s neutral foreign policy despite US dismay
Russia’s minister of foreign affairs, Sergei Lavrov, is due to arrive in Brasília on Monday for talks with his Brazilian counterpart, Mauro Vieira, in the latest of a series of bilateral encounters likely to ruffle the US. Lavrov arrives just as Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, returns from a state visit to China, and both missions are part of a diplomatic reset Lula has pursued since returning to power this year, as he strives to recover Brazil’s international reputation after his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, dismantled Brazil’s established tradition…