But it’s not clear if China’s intervention would help Ukraine, or if Xi could get through to Putin, experts said.
“China’s behavior to date is…at best pro-Russian neutrality,”
Evan Medieros, a professor at Georgetown University, said Thursday at a German Marshall Fund
event. “Even that is moving from passivity to active support for Russia. So in that instance, I don’t see why it would be in the interest of Ukraine or NATO to invite China to be the mediator.”
If Ukraine did want China to get involved, officials in Kyiv should ask some “gatekeeping questions” to ensure Beijing would be even handed in negotiations, Medieros said, including asking China to publicly condemn Moscow’s attacks on civilians and to donate more humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
Despite China’s stated willingness to intervene, Medieros questioned if they really want to get involved, or if they would rather stay out of the conflict and let the United States and Russia clash.
“When the Chinese look at Ukraine, their view is [that] you have two declining powers from a Chinese perspective, Russia and the United States. Let them fight it out, let them be distracted, let them use their resources, and we, China, will just sort of stay over here in Asia, continue to build up our domestic capabilities, and emerge from this as a global leader,” he said. “So it’s not clear to me that the Chinese are interested.”
Evan Montgomery, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, pointed out that China may have something to gain by ending the war, which might draw American attention away from the Indo-Pacific in the short term, but could leave Beijing as the sole great power threat getting all of America’s attention in the long term.
“At what point do Russian losses become a liability for Beijing because a weaker Russia could make it easier for the US to focus on Asia?” Montgomery
wrote on Twitter.
Regardless of the geopolitical impacts of China’s assistance,
Akio Takahara, a professor at the University of Tokyo, said that as the death toll grows and Russian troops continue to target civilians, it’s important to pursue every avenue to end the conflict.
“What’s most important at this point in time is to stop the carnage. If somebody, whoever, can try and persuade Putin to stop, I think we should let them try, but my impression is it’s going to be very difficult even for China to stop Putin at this moment,” he said at the German Marshall Fund event. “At this point in time, I think it’s very difficult for anybody to change Putin’s mind.”