China may be wise to act soon on a peace plan for Ukraine

When Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke this week at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an international defence forum in Singapore, he took sharp aim at China. In unusually blunt terms, he accused Xi Jinping of breaking a promise made in a phone call last year not to supply weapons to Russia for its war against Ukraine.

“Today, there is intelligence that somehow, some way, some things come to Russia’s markets via China,” he said. “Unfortunately, Ukraine does not have any powerful connections with China because China does not want it.”

Zelenskiy also accused Beijing of putting its diplomats in the service of Moscow by discouraging other countries in southeast Asia from attending a peace conference in Switzerland next week. The Swiss government says more than 70 countries have agreed to send delegations to the conference, more than half of them from Europe.

Russia has not been invited to the conference, which will be held under the so-called Copenhagen format, with Zelenskiy’s own 10-point peace plan as its starting point. Russia has not been invited and China, along with a number of other countries from the Global South, have said they will not attend.

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“We value Switzerland’s efforts in preparing for the talks and have repeatedly provided constructive suggestions to the Swiss side,” China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said this week after a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan.

“In today’s world, there are many conferences, and whether to participate and how to participate will be decided independently by China based on its own position.”

The Swiss foreign ministry insists that Zelenskiy’s demand for the withdrawal of all Russian forces from Ukraine will not be the sole focus of the conference. It will instead discuss other elements of the Zelenskiy plan such as nuclear safety, food safety, freedom of navigation and humanitarian issues.

“It remains to be seen whether a final declaration can be agreed at the end of the conference,” it said.

Among the countries that will stay away from the conference is Brazil, which last month issued a joint statement with China on resolving what they called the crisis in Ukraine. They called on all relevant parties to observe three principles for de-escalating the situation: no expansion of the battlefield, no escalation of fighting and no provocation by any party.

“All parties should create conditions for the resumption of direct dialogue and push for the de-escalation of the situation until the realisation of a comprehensive ceasefire. China and Brazil support an international peace conference held at a proper time that is recognised by both Russia and Ukraine, with equal participation of all parties as well as fair discussion of all peace plans,” they said.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov suggested that China could convene its own peace conference, to which both Russia and Ukraine would be invited. But Moscow insists that any peace negotiations must acknowledge the reality on the battlefield that sees Russian forces occupying almost a fifth of Ukraine’s national territory.

Some countries from the Global South that will attend the Swiss peace conference will send only mid-ranking officials rather than prime ministers or foreign ministers. This reflects their unease at being seen to join an initiative where mainly western countries create a framework for future negotiations without Russian involvement.

If China does convene its own peace conference with the support of Brazil and other like-minded countries, it could operate in parallel with the Swiss process. Switzerland’s foreign minister has made clear that he sees next week’s conference as one of a series that should eventually include Russia.

One question raised by the Brazilian-Chinese joint statement is when will be the “proper time” to hold an international conference “with equal participation of all parties as well as fair discussion of all peace plans”. The conventional wisdom in some European capitals is that Vladimir Putin will wait until after the United States presidential election in the hope of a victory for Donald Trump.

European diplomats fear that Trump will abandon Kyiv, cutting off funding and the supply of weapons and leaving the fate of Ukraine to Europe. In Beijing and Moscow, however, there is scepticism about the idea that Trump would hand Putin such an advantage without seeking anything in return.

The greatest prize for Washington would be to detach Russia strategically from China in a reverse of the manoeuvre carried out by Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. It would be an audacious gambit and although some in his inner circle are reported to be unhappy about the unbalanced nature of the Sino-Russian relationship, unlikely to succeed with Putin.

But even if Beijing can feel confident about the strength of its “no-limits” friendship with Moscow, it might be prudent to make its move towards peace in Ukraine now instead of waiting to find out.