Friday, 12 April 2024
Is China interested in ending the war in Ukraine?
In the past, China has come up with its own peaceful solutions to end the war in Ukraine but they came to nothing. The US was dismissive of the Beijing plan. I am not aware of any new or more recent moves by Beijing to try and resolve the war. Why is this? The reason is simple. It's in Beijing's long-term interest to have the US tied up in wars which don't affect China's vision for the future which includes domination of the South China Sea and an absence of US aircraft carriers anywhere near China's shores. The US has been spending billions of dollars on sending weapons to Ukraine and has been raiding its stocks for artillery shells and air-defence missiles. That's good for Beijing. The US commitment to aid Israel is another benefit to Beijing because the war in Gaza is not something which needs to bother the Chinese. They can just watch as the US struggles to maintain its relationship with the Tel Aviv government and gets political and diplomatic flak for delivering arms and weapons to a country which is then using them to obliterate the Palestinian people. So, all in all, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza are posing massive problems for the US and the West in general and, meanwhile, China's strategic partner, Vladimir Putin, is on a roll, surviving perfectly well in his two-year war and confident of hanging on to the territory he has seized in Ukraine. In Beijing's eyes, China is backing the winner without getting too involved, and if Putin eventually gets what he wants in a so-called peace deal, his counterpart in China, President Xi Zinping, will no doubt seek to add his influence by paticipating in the background to claim some credit for the war ending. It's a win, win for Beijing and it's costing them nothing.
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