Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he is willing to talk to China's leader Xi Jinping to discuss Beijing's proposal for ending the Russian offensive in Ukraine. On the first anniversary of the invasion, China put forth a 12-point peace plan that called for de-escalation and urged against the use of nuclear weapons. China, however, refrained from condemning its ally Russia.
At a news conference to mark one year of the conflict, Zelenskyy said Beijing's interest is “not bad” and he agrees with certain points in the proposal. Though he welcomed the plan, Zelenskyy said success would depend on “action, not words”.
He also added that he was doing everything possible to ensure China won't supply arms to Russia. “I really want to believe that China will not supply weapons to the Russian Federation,” Zelenskyy said. He added that he wanted to believe that China will be on the side of the just world, which means on our side. The Russian foreign ministry also welcomed China's peace plan and said it was open to talks.
Responding to the proposal, Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukraine’s president, said any plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine must involve the withdrawal of Moscow’s troops back to Ukraine’s 1991 borders at the time of the Soviet Union’s collapse.
The US and NATO remained skeptical of China's proposals and accused Beijing of not maintaining a neutral position. "China doesn't have much credibility because they have not been able to condemn the illegal invasion of Ukraine," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Tallinn. US President Biden, who made a surprise visit to Kyiv to mark the first anniversary, said he did not see anything in China's plan that is beneficial to anyone other than Russia. Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Beijing was considering supplying weapons and ammunition to Russia—an allegation China denied.
The proposal is “an attempt for public relations on the part of China,” Li Mingjiang, a professor and international security expert at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University told the Washington Post.
What does China's proposal say
The Chinese proposals follow Foreign Minister Wang Yi's visit to Moscow, where he met Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday. The 12-point paper released by China's Foreign Ministry calls for an end to attacks on civilians, the establishment of humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians, and the export of grain. Due to the blockades at the beginning of the war, Ukraine's exports dipped, leading to a global spike in food prices last year.
The proposal calls for the 'sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity' of all countries to be respected, but does not say what will happen to the territory Russia has occupied since the invasion.
China called for an end to the sanctions of Russia, and also for an end to the 'Cold War' mentality— a term China uses to refer to the global dominance of the US. Dialogue and negotiation are the only viable solution to the Ukraine crisis. the proposal said. It offered no details on what form talks should take but said China will continue to play a constructive role in this regard.