China to ‘show’ world it can broker Russia-Ukraine peace

Bloomberg

A year after declaring a “no-limits” partnership with Russia, China is now seeking to convince the world it’s a neutral actor that can help end the war in Ukraine. It won’t be easy.
Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi is set to visit Moscow in the coming days after floating a fresh peace proposal to end the conflict triggered by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Beijing’s effort has been disparaged by the US, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken accusing China of privately weighing whether to give Russia weapons even while saying “they haven’t crossed that line yet.”
The verbal sparring by Blinken and Wang, who failed to agree on much last weekend during a meeting at a security forum in Germany, shows that problems between the world’s biggest economies go much deeper than the balloon spat that roiled relations this month. The war in Ukraine is now becoming a pivotal issue for both sides to shape global narratives, particularly as war fatigue starts to grip parts of the world.
“I do not doubt Beijing’s desire for there to be peace, but at the same time the proposal seems incredible,” said Raffaello Pantucci, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore who co-wrote a book on China’s foreign policy. “For it to be credible, China would have to be seen as an independent broker. Yet China has clearly chosen a side in this conflict.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping has yet to talk with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy since the invasion despite speaking with Putin some four times in that span.