Zhao Long|China renews call for direct talks as UN Security Council turns attention to Ukraine crisis

Zhao Long   

Next week’s UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine could help ease tensions between Moscow and Kyiv, but the two countries should engage in direct dialogue, according to Chinese ambassador to the United Nations Zhang Jun.

Tensions have risen in Europe as Russia has sent more than 100,000 combat troops to its border with Ukraine with demands for security guarantees, including that Ukraine never be allowed to join Nato.

On Friday, US President Joe Biden said he would move US troops to Eastern Europe and Nato countries “in the near term”, though he said the number would be “not a lot”.

The Security Council will debate the crisis at a public meeting on Monday called by the United States, a move dismissed by Russia as a “shameful” PR stunt.

Russia’s state-owned Sputnik news agency quoted Zhang as urging Ukraine and Russia to have direct talks.

“Both sides have shown a willingness to continue their negotiations, and let them settle the differences through dialogue, through negotiations,” the Chinese ambassador was quoted as saying on Friday.

“What the Security Council should do is to help to de-escalate the situation, instead of adding fuel to the fire.”

A senior Biden administration confirmed that the US had “been in an active diplomatic conversation with the Chinese mission in New York about this [Monday] meeting and the issue as it comes to the Security Council as well”, Newsweek’s website reported.

The official said a war would bring no benefit to Washington or Beijing.

“It’s not in China’s interest to see a conflict in this situation, not just because of the Olympics,” he was quoted as saying, but also because “more broadly, the impact of a devastating conflict in Europe would have on China’s interests all over the world”.

Chinese diplomatic observers said Beijing would maintain a flexible but ambiguous position and was unlikely to weigh in. They also doubted whether a Security Council meeting could do much to help.

Zhao Long, a senior research fellow from the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said neither the US, nor Europe or Russia wanted to be “the first to fire”.

Zhao said a Security Council meeting could help “prevent a conflict and deter the impulse of one party to take pre-emptive action, but the lack of trust between Russia and the West is the key problem”.

Yang Cheng, an expert on Russia at Shanghai International Studies University, said the crisis was likely to escalate if Moscow could not get a written guarantee from the West.

“Without written guarantees for Russia’s security, there is a risk that the Ukraine crisis will continue to escalate, and even limited conflict and limited war cannot be ruled out,” Yang said.

As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China would try hard to avoid further escalation in the Ukraine crisis, he said.

“But the key question remains whether a compromise can be reached between Russia and the US, and between Russia and Nato. This is the core factor that will decide the future,” he said.

Yang said China was one of the few countries that maintained close cooperation with both Russia and Ukraine and believed that the crisis should be resolved peacefully by stakeholders through diplomatic means rather than going into war.

“China’s policy on the Ukraine crisis will not go beyond [of that] and China will not choose sides between Russia and Ukraine,” Yang said.

Beijing has sought to avoid endorsing the moves of either side but last week it offered its first public show of support for Moscow over the matter, with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi telling US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that “Russia’s reasonable security concerns should be taken seriously and resolved”.

The US has called on Beijing to use its influence with Moscow to push for a diplomatic solution to the crisis but observers said China was not likely to take on a bigger role.

Zhang Xin, an associate professor of international relations at East China Normal University, said Beijing was likely to maintain a “flexible but vague attitude” over the crisis.

He said China had not “expressed a strong will to play a role as a participant, or mediator”.

“The US is testing the waters to see if China is willing to play a role as mediator, though I don’t think China is showing any direct signals,” Zhang said.

Source: SCMP. Jan 27