China's Xi to visit Moscow in show of support for Putin

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin stand side by side in front of flags.

By KARL RITTER

Associated Press

March 17, 2023 Updated 4:17 PM PT

KYIV, Ukraine — Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to visit Moscow next week, offering a major diplomatic boost to Vladimir Putin on the same day the International Criminal Court said it wants to put the Russian president on trial for alleged war crimes.

News of Xi’s visit, the latest sign of Beijing’s emboldened diplomatic ambitions, came amid sharpening East-West tensions over the war in Ukraine, now in its 13th month.

The U.S. on Friday said it would oppose any effort by China at the meeting to propose a cease-fire in Ukraine as the “ratification of Russian conquest.”

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby encouraged Xi to reach out to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to get his perspective on the war and to avoid any “one-sided” proposals.

China has sought to project itself as neutral in the conflict, even though it has refused to condemn Moscow’s aggression and declared last year that it had a “no-limits” friendship with Russia. Beijing has denounced Western sanctions against Moscow and accused the North Atlantic Treaty Organization of provoking Putin’s military action.

In statements on Ukraine, China has said the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be respected. It remains unclear, however, whether China has sympathy for Moscow’s claims to seized Ukrainian territory.

Russian troops remain bogged down in a battle of attrition, focused on those areas in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

Xi’s visit would mark his first meeting with Putin since September, when they spoke on the sidelines of a regional summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Before that, Putin attended the opening of the 2022 Beijing Winter Games and met with Xi shortly before sending troops into Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that Putin and Xi would have a one-on-one meeting Monday over an informal dinner. Broader talks involving officials from both countries are scheduled for Tuesday.

Putin’s foreign policy advisor, Yuri Ushakov, suggested that the talks could yield new approaches to the fighting in Ukraine, where Russia has struggled to advance.

“I’m sure that our leader and the Chinese leader will exchange their assessments of the situation in the context of the development of the conflict in Ukraine,” Ushakov said. “We shall see what ideas will emerge after that.”

Kyiv doesn’t just want Russia to pull back from areas taken since its February 2022 full-scale invasion. Zelensky has demanded that Russia also withdraw from the peninsula of Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014 in a move denounced by most of the world as illegal.

But Putin has shown no intention of relinquishing the Kremlin’s gains. Instead, he stressed Friday the importance of holding Crimea.

“Obviously, security issues take top priority for Crimea and Sevastopol now,” he said, referring to the peninsula’s largest city. “We will do everything needed to fend off any threats.”

On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang told his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, that Beijing is concerned about the year-old conflict spinning out of control and urged talks with Moscow on a political solution.

China has “always upheld an objective and fair stance on the Ukraine issue, has committed itself to promoting peace and advancing negotiations and calls on the international community to create conditions for peace talks,” Qin said.

Kuleba later tweeted that he and Qin “discussed the significance of the principle of territorial integrity.” Ukraine has listed Russia’s withdrawal from the occupied areas as the main condition for peace.

“I underscored the importance of [Zelensky’s] Peace Formula for ending the aggression and restoring just peace in Ukraine,” wrote Kuleba, who spoke the same day with U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken.

China last month called for a cease-fire in Ukraine and peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow. Zelensky cautiously welcomed Beijing’s involvement, but the overture appeared to go no further.

Yurii Poita, head of the Asia section at the Kyiv-based New Geopolitics Research Network, believes the Ukrainian government is going along with China’s involvement because it is reluctant to make another powerful enemy.

“Do not antagonize the dragon when you are fighting against a bear,” Poita told the Associated Press.

Beijing’s deeper dive into issues involving Ukraine follows its success last week in brokering talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Those two Middle Eastern rivals agreed to restore diplomatic ties after years of tensions. The agreement cast China in a leading role in Middle Eastern politics — a part previously reserved for longtime heavyweights such as the United States.

On the back of that, Xi called for China to play a bigger role in managing global affairs.

Washington has marshaled Western military and diplomatic efforts against Putin. On Friday, Kirby told reporters, “A cease-fire now is again, effectively, the ratification of Russian conquest” and would “in effect recognize Russia’s gains and its attempt to conquer its neighbor’s territory by force, allowing Russian troops to continue to occupy sovereign Ukrainian territory.”

Additionally, he warned, “Russia could use a cease-fire to regroup “so that they can restart attacks on Ukraine at a time of their choosing.”

A spokesman for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he would welcome any genuine effort by China aimed at “restoring sovereignty to Ukraine.”

“Any peace deal which is not predicated on Ukraine’s sovereignty and self-determination is not a peace deal at all,” Sunak’s spokesman, Jamie Davies, said.

Nataliia Butyrska, a Ukrainian political analyst, said Beijing’s potential peacemaking role could be clouded by its stance on territorial integrity.

China, she told the AP “does not clearly distinguish between who is the aggressor and who is the victim” in Ukraine.

China has its own territorial issues, with Taiwan, which it claims as its own, to be brought under its control by force if necessary.

Tensions between the U.S. and Moscow were further escalated this week with Tuesday’s destruction of a U.S. drone over the Black Sea after an encounter with Russian fighter jets — although that also prompted the first conversations since October between the countries’ defense and military chiefs.

Putin invited Xi to visit Russia during a video conference call in late December. The visit, Putin said, could “demonstrate to the whole world the strength of the Russian-Chinese ties” and “become the main political event of the year in bilateral relations.”

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin said Friday that Xi “will have an in-depth exchange of views with President Putin on bilateral relations and major international and regional issues of common concern.

“Currently, the world is entering a new period of turbulence and reform with the accelerated evolution of changes of the century,” he added. “As permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and important major countries, the significance and impact of the China-Russia relations go far beyond the bilateral sphere.”

The arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court at The Hague accused Putin of involvement in abductions of children from Ukraine to Russia. The court also issued a warrant for his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.

The Kremlin has said it doesn’t recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, which has no police force to enforce warrants.