THEO VAN GOGH BACKGROUNDER: MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 10590
Russia Unperturbed By Xi-Zelensky Phone Call
The April 26, 2023 telephone conversation between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodomyr Zelensky, with its implication that China would like to play the role of the intermediator between Russia and Ukraine, should have ostensibly rattled Russia. In the conversation that lasted an hour, Xi used the term “strategic partnership” to describe China’s relationship with Ukraine. China has refrained from using this phrase to describe its relations with Kyiv since the leadup to the invasion. Moscow is expecting that China’s benevolent neutrality towards Russia, most obvious in commercial relations between the countries, along with a seeming convergence of views on opposing American hegemonism, will morph into overt military assistance. China assuming the role of mediator would foreclose on such possibilities.
Russian commentators were not about to endorse the explanations circulating in the West that the phone call was a corrective to the “personal remarks” by China’s Ambassador to Paris Lu Shaye where he questioned the sovereignty of the former Soviet republics that had become independent upon the collapse of the USSR. The comments by the ambassador had produced harsh criticism of China in the EU. Russia preferred to treat the Chinese diplomatic initiative with respect, comparing it favorably with America’s destructive policy in Ukraine and elsewhere.
The present report describes the Russian reactions to the phone conversation between Xi Jinping and Volodomyr Zelensky.
Ukrainian Obduracy Dooms Chinese Good Intentions
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova was sanguine about the chances of the conversation between Xi and Zelensky having any concrete results given Ukrainian and Western intransigence:
“We have noted Chinese efforts to initiate a negotiating process. We see general similarity between our principled approaches and the provisions of the policy document published by the Chinese Foreign Ministry on February 24, 2023.
“At the same time, we believe that the problem lies not in a shortage of good plans. So far, the Kyiv regime is openly rejecting any reasonable initiative to settle the Ukraine crisis through political and diplomatic approaches. Moreover, it links its possible consent to negotiations with ultimatums containing a priori unrealistic demands.
“Ukraine’s authorities and their Western handlers have already shown their ability to delay any peace initiative. They openly admit that the Minsk agreements were needed only to gain time to build offensive potential. In the spring of 2022, Kyiv unexpectedly rejected the virtually completed peace agreements reached by the sides at Kyiv’s request.
“Volodomyr Zelensky even signed legislation banning any talks with President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin. So, these Washington-controlled puppets can hardly adequately respond to any calls for peace.”
Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov noted that China was not going to endorse Ukraine’s demands that Russia withdraw to the 2014 borders. He noted that Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping did not discuss Ukraine’s return to the 1991 borders [after the collapse of the Soviet Union] during the Chinese leader’s visit to Moscow.
Russia was therefore satisfied when Mikhail Podolyak, one of Zelensky’s top advisers, appeared to confirm its expectations. Podolyak effectively called upon China to choose sides and distance itself from Russia.
“For a year, China could not decide on a position, and now it has to make a choice: either it works within the framework defined by international law, and then displaces Russia in the full sense of the word, or China continues to stand aside – and then it will gradually lose its influence, including economic,” Podolyak said. He added that it is important for the Ukrainian side that China does not help Russia economically, and “does not participate in the Russian military-industrial complex, does not act as a Russian information or diplomatic agent.”
Mikhail Podolyak (Source: Kommersant.ru)
This statement was met with ridicule in the Russian press.