Beijing’s ‘Peace’ Bull
What a pack of self-serving bull Beijing just dropped in its supposed “peace proposal” for Russia’s war on Ukraine. Most glaringly, it ignores the fact that Russia is China’s “unshakable” ally, so declared at the Xi Jinping-Vladimir Putin sitdown last February — at which Xi plainly signed off in advance on Putin’s decision to invade, asking only that Moscow hold off until the Olympics wrapped up in Beijing later that month.
That the war’s gone far worse than Putin ever imagined is no skin off Xi’s nose, of course: China’s profited immensely by being Russia’s buyer of last resort this past year, and Beijing only benefits from all the Russian and NATO arms used up in the conflict. Xi’s only goal is to bolster his own world power.
Very easy for China to call for a ceasefire; maybe Putin will even agree if his current all-out offensive fails and he fears Ukraine’s coming counter. Then they can both blame Kyiv.
As for the cynical details of Beijing’s “plan”: Its stated “principles” are mostly a long list of things Russia has violated, from “Respecting the sovereignty of all countries” (Russia did the invading) to “Protecting civilians and prisoners of war” (Moscow’s targeted civilians from the start).
China also helpfully expressed its opposition to any nuclear-weapons use; Putin constantly threatens just that, without Beijing uttering a peep of protest.
As laughable is China’s call for “abandoning the Cold War mentality,” which the West did long ago: We even let Beijing into the world economy as a Most Favored Nation and member of every global economic institution; Moscow, too.
But both nations have been building their militaries for decades, even as the West has cut back. Putin’s launched multiple of invasions of his neighbors; Xi so far only bullies his.
Fact is, China’s the only power outside Russia that could end the war now — if Xi told Putin he was cutting him off. Yet Beijing merely abstained in this week’s UN General Assembly vote calling on Russia to withdraw. Xi Jinping doesn’t particularly want peace in Ukraine; he just wants to help the suckers of the world fool themselves into thinking he’s a good guy.