Chinese Intervention: Is the Zelenskyy-Xi call a game changer?

More than 14 months after Russia invaded Ukraine, Chinese President Xi Jinping held his first phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last Wednesday. China emphasized that its core position is promoting peace talks while promising to send a special envoy to Ukraine and hold talks with all parties in the ongoing conflict.

Zelenskyy characterized the talks with Xi as “long and meaningful.” “I believe that this call, as well as the appointment of Ukraine’s ambassador to China, will give a powerful impetus to the development of our bilateral relations,” Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter. The call, which was the first known contact between Xi and Zelenskyy since the Russian invasion, was welcomed by the US, the EU, France and Germany — while Russia said it welcomes any move that could help bring the end of the conflict soon.

However, the Kremlin said it still needed to achieve the goals of its “special military operation” in Ukraine. The White House added that it was too soon to determine whether it could lead to a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Washington’s caution is shared by some experts, who think the call fails to offer anything new regarding China’s stance on the conflict. “On the one hand, the call was an old-fashioned conversation centering around the friendship between China and Ukraine, and it failed to offer any concrete peace proposals to the ongoing conflict,” said Wu Qiang, an independent Chinese analyst in Beijing. “It also didn’t condemn the Russian invasion. All of China’s political positions reflected through the call remain the same.”

Other experts say China wants to keep pushing for the “peacemaker” narrative through Xi’s call with Zelenskyy while repairing the damages caused by controversial comments made by Lu Shaye, the Chinese ambassador to France this week. During an interview with French broadcaster TF1, Lu questioned the sovereignty of former Soviet countries, claiming they have no “effective status” under international law. “Lu’s remarks upset many people in Europe, which leads to some reading the effort to reach out to Zelenskyy at this point as an attempt to show that China is taking European concerns about sovereignty and peace seriously,” said Ian Chong, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore.

However, some observers say the call is much more than controlling the damages caused by Lu’s comments, as Beijing hopes to use the ongoing conflict to portray itself as a global power that’s capable of facilitating the peace process. “It’s an opportunity to project the image back home that internationally, China is really important and can drive the process,” said Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy, an assistant professor at the National Dong Hwa University (NDHU) in Taiwan.

“It’s also a message to countries in the Global South, who are following China’s record as an international actor. If China pulls this off and manages to be the driving force in how Russia and Ukraine go forward, it’s a huge opportunity for Beijing to project itself like that globally,” she told DW. Zsuzsa added that the call with Zelenskyy is just one step in the bigger picture of how Beijing positions itself in the unfolding situation. While China continues to highlight its neutrality in the Ukraine war, analysts and some world leaders remain skeptical over Beijing’s real intention.

In an exclusive interview with DW, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda cast doubt on China’s credibility as a mediator, emphasizing that condemnation of Russia’s invasion has to be the precondition for Beijing to become a real mediator. Since last February, China has been building a “no limits partnership” with Russia by deepening bilateral ties on multiple fronts. Even though China stops short of offering Russia military support, Beijing has also not condemned Russia’s invasion or characterized the conflict as a “war.”

This article is provided by Deutsche Welle