On China's peace plan for Ukraine

Beijing is not a reliable mediator

The one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month saw two remarkable parallel events: President Biden paid an unannounced visit to Kyiv, reinforcing America’s unshakable commitment to help Ukraine defend itself, while China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, shook hands with President Putin in Moscow, hailing the relationship between the two countries as “rock solid”. 

Soon after Beijing released a 12 point peace plan, promoted in the Australian’s commentary page by its Consul General in Brisbane, Dr Ruan Zongze. 

The title of Dr Ruan’s article, China Seeks Peace in Ukraine Crisis, is an exercise in obfuscation itself. Since the beginning, China has carefully avoided the word “war”, let alone “invasion”, to describe Russia's action. Instead its official communication and state media reports adopted Moscow’s propaganda term, Special Military Operation, or other passive words such as “crisis” or “conflict”, to downplay the gravity of Putin’s transgression. 

Dr Ruan claimed that many countries welcomed and supported China’s initiative, without giving details. Curiously he didn’t mention the reactions from the two warring parties. President Zelenskyy said there were points in the proposal he agreed with and there were those he didn’t. Russia’s foreign ministry spokesman responded that the “conditions for peace” were not in place at the moment.

Dr Ruan accused the West of “Doublethink” in demanding China to pressure Russia to end the war and complaining about Beijing’s close ties with Moscow, a strange observation considering there is no evidence so far that China has leveraged its “strategic partnership” to change Putin’s behavior while Chinese imports of Russian energy have skyrocketed since last year.

“While all parties are taking opposing positions and making calculations with great division, it’s the Ukrainian and Russian people who are bleeding”, Dr Ruan wrote, essentially drawing a moral equivalence between the significant loss of Ukrainian civilian lives as a result of Russian attacks to Russian military casualties. Beijing frequently condemns Japanese memorial services held at the Yasukuni Shrine for their dead soldiers of WWII, yet here we have a senior Chinese diplomat laying a rhetorical wreath for the Russian invaders.

Parroting Russian propaganda, Dr Ruan attributed the root cause of the crisis to NATO expansion and stated that the western military alliance is using Ukraine as oxygen for its “life extension”. Extending his logic (the Consul General had a PhD in law), Putin could have easily cut off NATO’s oxygen by ending his war today. Dr Ruan bemoaned the heavy weapons “pouring out” to Ukraine from the West, yet did not show an ounce of indignation at the Russian missiles and artillery raining down on Ukrainian cities. 

While offering no condemnation for Putin’s brutal invasion of a neighboring sovereign country and showing no sympathies for the suffering of the Ukrainians and the destruction of their cities and homes, Dr Ruan did take the time to complain about “political, economic, trade and cultural sanctions” imposed on Russia by the West. Without noting the fact Ukraine has withstood the onslaught from a much stronger military foe, Dr Ruan proudly proclaimed that Russia hasn’t been “brought down”, citing Putin’s recent State of the Nation address that “it is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield”. The Mujahideen would like to comment. 

China’s 12 point peace plan does have some positive aspects, for example  its express opposition to the “threat or use of nuclear weapons”, without naming Russia but obviously referring to Putin’s repeated hint of deploying them. However the fundamentally the plan lacks credibility because of the inherent contradictions of China’s positions: Beijing claims that the “sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all countries must be effectively upheld”, but it has yet to condemn or even criticize publicly Russian invasion of Ukraine and seizure of its territories; while officially feigning “neutrality”, Chinese diplomats and state media outlets have been relentlessly promoting preferred narrative of Moscow that NATO, orchestrated by the evil Americans, has brought disaster to Ukraine by expanding the military alliance to Russia’s border; Beijing insists that “all countries, big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, are equal members of the international community”, yet by blaming the war on NATO expansion, it denies the agency and will of Ukraine and other former Soviet satellite states to seek their own alliance and determine their own future; Beijing says the security of Ukraine should not be pursued at the expense of Russia, essentially embracing the disgraced Lebensraum theory of Nazi Germany and allowing Russia to meet its own security needs at the expense of a much smaller neighbor, Ukraine.

What ultimately prevents China from being a neutral and effective mediator is the cold hard fact that after its platitudes and rhetoric for peace, China is on the side of Putin. In setting up the strategic partnership with “no upper limit” with Russia just weeks before the war, President Xi is betting on Russia being China’s ally in his strategic competition with the US, and possible war over the fate of Taiwan. A defeat on the Ukrainian battlefield would seriously weaken Russia, or even topple Putin and turn Moscow to the West.

Just like the Republicans in the US, in their naked pursuit of political power, has been behind Donald Trump every step of the way, despite the clear and present danger he posed to the constitution and the western alliance, China is supporting Putin who has waged a brutal and immoral war of annexation against Ukraine, in naked pursuit of its perceived strategic interest. One day the Republicans will come to regret their betrayal of their own conservative values, and China will regret too the damage done to its international reputation and standing.  

Dr Ruan’s original article: