My Take | Why Ukraine’s foreign minister decided to visit China right now
- With isolationist Trump on the White House horizon, Kyiv needs to ‘triangulate’ diplomatic pressure on Washington, Moscow and Beijing
It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you are serious about negotiating for peace, you do it behind closed doors, away from the public eye. The converse is also true, that is, if you are not serious about negotiating, you talk to reporters instead.
That’s why month after month, you have Western leaders engaged in megaphone diplomacy through the media by claiming that Beijing could end Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine if it would just do it.
You have Finnish President Alexander Stubb claiming on Bloomberg, “Russia is so dependent on China right now one phone call from President Xi Jinping would solve this crisis.”
One phone call, as opposed to five? It will probably take more than a few phone calls when Putin’s political and probably personal survival depends on some versions of “victory” that he may plausibly claim in Ukraine.
Repeatedly, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called on Beijing to help stop Putin – what with phone calls or a magic wand? – while castigating China for not taking part in the Ukraine Peace Summit, held in Switzerland last month.
But, as many independent critics have pointed out, what was the point of a peace conference when the side that started the war wasn’t even invited. This was despite Moscow’s repeated messages that it was ready to talk peace.
Well, you could do that if the West were winning or if Putin were ready to admit defeat. But that’s far from the case with Russia at the moment.
