China boosts its role as mediator by sending special representative to Kiev and Moscow

Vladimir Putin and Li Hui, in May 2019 in Moscow.Xinhua / Zuma Press / ContactPhoto

China on Friday announced yet another step in its strategy to mediate the war in Ukraine. The Foreign Ministry has announced a date for what will be the first visit by a senior Chinese official to Ukrainian soil since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022. Li Hui, special representative of the Chinese government for Eurasian affairs (and former ambassador in Moscow), will travel to Europe next Monday, on a trip that will take him to Russia, Ukraine, Poland, France and Germany to "communicate with all parties on a political solution to the crisis."

The Chinese government announced that it intended to send a special envoy "to maintain in-depth communication" at the end of April, after the phone call of Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodímir Zelenski, the only one that has taken place since the outbreak of the conflict.

"The visit of Chinese representatives to relevant countries is another manifestation of China's commitment to promoting peace and dialogue, and shows that China is firmly on the side of peace," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Friday during his daily press briefing. "Since the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis, China has always maintained an objective and impartial stance and promoted peace negotiations." Wang reiterated, in line with the official discourse.

From the West it is not so clear: Beijing avoids calling the conflict as "war", has not condemned the invasion, and President Xi did not speak with Zelenski until a year and two months after the start of this, while he has done so with the Russian Vladimir Putin on several occasions. Still, China has sought in recent months to convey that it plays a powerful role in the geopolitical theater and offers an alternative to U.S. global leadership.

In February, it presented a position paper — not a peace plan — to reach a "political resolution of the crisis." The text was received coldly by Washington and Brussels. But Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said during their recent visits to China that some of the points are "interesting," such as "respect for territorial integrity" and outright rejection of nuclear war.

In his appearance on Friday, spokesman Wang said that "the international community is calling for a ceasefire and for tensions to be reduced." "China is willing to continue to play a constructive role and promote international consensus to start peace negotiations," he said. "China is willing to contribute to reaching a political solution to the Ukraine crisis," Wang said.

"Friendship without limits"

International analysts believe Xi may be the only one with the ability to convince Putin to end the war. The two "good old friends" – as the Russian defined his relationship with his Chinese counterpart in the last meeting – signed a "friendship without limits" days before the invasion began, and their countries maintain an important strategic partnership. But, at the same time, such close ties have set off alarms on more than one occasion in the West, given the possibility that Beijing would help Moscow militarily.

At this juncture, the expectation ahead of Li Hui's visit to Ukraine and Russia next week is great. Li, 70, is a senior official well seasoned in the modus operandi of China's diplomacy in recent decades. He was ambassador to Russia between 2009 and 2019, a post he was assigned in the last five years of Hu Jintao's administration and held with Xi's government. This career diplomat is part of the generation of Chinese who were born when his parents idolized the Soviet system, grew up when political relations began to deteriorate after the death of Stalin, in 1953, and lived a new rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing as a result of China's need to boost its exports when its status as the world's leading exporter was still in its infancy.

Li was also ambassador to Kazakhstan from 1997 to 2000. Despite his extensive knowledge of the nations that were part of the former Soviet Union, his status as an impartial mediator can generate distrust in Kiev: Li has never hidden his position of alignment with the Kremlin in various publications in Russian and Chinese media. In July 2019, when he was finishing his post in Moscow, he wrote as a farewell in the Russian news agency TASS an article entitled Eternal friendship like the evergreen mountains. In the text, it stated that "regardless of where I am or what position I assume, I will devote myself, as always, to the cause of Sino-Russian friendship and will continue to use my 44 years of experience in diplomatic work with Russia to contribute to the development of bilateral relations."

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