The president of China, Xi Jinping, has told the former Russian president and current vice-president of the Security Council, Dimitri Medvedev, that Beijing is interested in advancing peace negotiations between Kiev and Moscow.
«China hopes that the parties involved will behave rationally, exercise restraint, conduct comprehensive talks and resolve their mutual security concerns through political methods,» Xi stressed in statements to Chinese state media.
In this regard, the Chinese president told Medvedev that while China continues to consider Russia an important partner, they are also interested in promoting peace talks, according to Bloomberg.
The Chinese president’s statements could mean a paradigm shift in Beijing’s policy, which until now has been ambiguous about condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ten months ago.
However, on the occasion of the recent G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, China had already signed a joint statement in which most of the participants at that meeting expressed strong condemnation of the war in Ukraine.
Over the last year China has preferred to avoid unnecessary tensions with the European Union, which last year paralyzed an investment agreement amid accusations and sanctions -prompted by Washington- for the human rights violations being committed in the Xinjiang region.
In November, President Xi asked the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, to intensify efforts to resolve the crisis in Ukraine, at the same time as he conveyed Beijing’s opposition to any escalation of arms and nuclear forces in Europe.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
