China will send a special envoy to Ukraine, Russia and other countries to discuss a “political settlement of the Ukraine crisis,” the Chinese foreign ministry said on Friday.
Li Hui, a former Chinese ambassador to Moscow, will visit Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany and Russia starting Monday, spokesman Wang Wenbin announced at a press conference.
“Sending a representative . . . is another way for China to demonstrate its commitment and efforts to promote peace talks, and it fully demonstrates that China is firmly on the side of peace,” Wang said.
Li’s visit comes as Ukraine prepares its spring counteroffensive, the results of which will influence the shape of any peace talks between Kiev and Moscow, and as the EU begins to discuss a new China policy.
It also follows a nearly hour-long phone call between Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine last month that the latter described as “long and meaningful.” Xi told Zelenskyy during the call that he would soon send a special representative to talk to “all parties” to seek a “political settlement.”
Xi has called Russian President Vladimir Putin at least five times since the war in Ukraine began, and the two leaders met in Moscow in March.
Beijing has presented a 12-point proposal to end the war. It calls on the warring parties to resume peace talks and respect national sovereignty, but does not include many of Ukraine’s key peace demands, including that Russian forces must first withdraw from Ukrainian territory before any negotiations .
Ukraine’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Li’s upcoming visit.
Yu Jie, senior China fellow at Chatham House, said Li’s visit “is intended to send a signal that China is willing to play a mediating role rather than putting any substantive proposals on the table.”
Yu said China’s audience was not the West, but the “large parts of developing countries that don’t see eye-to-eye on this war the way the collective West does.”
China’s ambivalence about the war in Ukraine, which it does not refer to as an invasion, has disturbed its relations with European countries. Beijing’s ambassador to France caused an uproar last month by questioning the sovereignty of post-Soviet states, in statements that the foreign ministry later contradicted.
In a frosty meeting with his counterpart in Berlin on Tuesday, China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang threatened countermeasures if the EU pressed ahead with a proposal to impose sanctions on Chinese companies allegedly supplying dual-use military components use in Russia.
“The crisis in Ukraine continues to escalate, spillovers continue to appear, and the international community’s calls for a ceasefire and de-escalation are growing louder and louder,” Wang said on Friday.
Li was China’s ambassador to Russia for 10 years until 2019. He is the vice minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is its special representative for Eurasian affairs.
Additional reporting by Maiqi Ding
