Is China Sincere About Peace in Ukraine?

As the invasion of Ukraine heads into its third year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been working nonstop to ensure diplomatic and military support amid increasing war fatigue. Russia’s influence in Europe is still visible, taking advantage of the uncertainty of European elites. A year of elections may change the geopolitical map in the same way that Slovakia turned away from its previous support for Kyiv after the 2023 election.

China is watching and learning from these processes; building its peacemaking image; and benefiting from the chaos on the international markets, buying cheap gas and oil and helping Russia’s economy with what was lost due to Western sanctions. The United States and European Union have both pressured China to play a more positive role. But how much does China’s stance matter, and is it bad news for Ukraine?

In 2023, Chinese President Xi Jinping made some gestures toward Ukraine, speaking with Zelensky on April 26 and appointing diplomat Li Hui as a representative to Kyiv, Moscow, and Europe in May. Yet China’s official rhetoric hasn’t changed, accusing NATO and the United States of “providing weapons and triggering proxy wars.” Li attended the second Ukrainian peace summit in Jeddah, but he refused to come to the third such peace summit in Malta and has been virtually invisible since.

And despite Ukrainian and Western efforts, Russia and China continued to grow ever closer in 2023. Xi’s first foreign visit since the invasion was to Moscow, while China helped Russian President Vladimir Putin to break out from political and economic isolation. Last October, Putin attended the Belt and Road Summit in Beijing, receiving a high-level reception.

But Ukraine believes that this friendship still has some limits, since China does not supply lethal aid for Russia’s war. Rhetorically, though, there is still no room to be openly pro-Ukrainian in China. In 2023, Chinese officials and scholars have been more active in public than they were a year ago. However, none of them still dare to call the attack on Ukraine a war.

Experts from well-known Chinese universities and think tanks have published numerous articles and essays on “the Ukraine crisis,” claiming that the Russia-Ukraine conflict is forcing the countries to choose sides in the international system (Gu Wei), strengthening the Japanese-U.S. alliance (Lu Hao), increasing the risk of a Russian-U.S. nuclear war (Zhao Huasheng), and intensifying conflicts between Russia and the West (Zhang Hong). They do not call Russia the aggressor and avoid mentioning China in the context of “the Ukraine crisis,” except when referring to China’s peacemaking role.

The Global Security Initiative (GSI), announced by Xi at the Boao Forum for Asia just a few months after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, “advocates respecting and safeguarding the security of every country … respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries.” From the Ukrainian perspective, this initiative means that China should play a bigger role as a responsible global leader, but so far, it has had no effect.

Zhao Minghao, another scholar, also agreed that China’s influence on the so-called Ukraine crisis is limited. Beijing rather wants to foster an international order supporting only its own security, prosperity, and sovereignty interests. The GSI is intended as a response to Western alliances such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and AUKUS, creating a space where Russia can add strategic balance to the Chinese side. That’s why Beijing needs Russia by its side, advocating Moscow’s security concern on NATO expansion and stressing Russia’s leadership position in the international system as well as on the regional level.

Chinese-Russian relations are mostly about the personal relations between Xi and Putin. China seems like the only country that could push Russia to stop the invasion, and the GSI could serve as a tool for getting a practical result “for the common good of the world,” as Chinese officials have described. At the 10th Beijing Xiangshan Forum in October 2023, China declared that it was “committed to … de-escalation” … and would “work persistently for peace” in Ukraine. It’s a beautiful expression—not a solution.

China is actively promoting peace talks between Ukraine and Russia as the only way to end the conflict, and it sees itself holding a mediating role when both sides are ready for that dialogue. Chinese analyst Zhou Bo argued that this moment will come when Kyiv and Moscow won’t be able to continue military actions. While Beijing has never proposed an exact scenario for Ukraine-Russia peace talks, it persistently pushes for a negotiation that will placate both sides—meaning, in practice, that Russia will be rewarded for its aggression. Since the war has affected the Chinese economy, one reason why Xi seems eager for some kind of mediation is to meet his goal of “ensuring the stability of global industrial and supply chains.”

There’s one deal that could potentially provide a way for Beijing to take a meaningful role. In 1994, China and Ukraine signed a joint declaration guaranteeing the nonapplication of nuclear weapons toward Ukraine and nonparticipation in any military actions with a third party, which might harm the state sovereignty of the other. Yet nowadays, China never mentions this declaration, and it instead advocates “respecting and safeguarding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries.”

China could be part of Ukraine’s nuclear umbrella, as it was described in the joint declaration of 1994 and another joint declaration on “establishment and development of strategic partnership” in 2011. Instead, Beijing has adopted a vague stance and forgotten its own promises while criticizing NATO and the United States for “adding fuel to the fire.”

Another issue where Beijing could have acted, but chose not to, is global food security. According to the World Bank, the total estimated agricultural war damages and losses for Ukraine have increased to more than $40 billion. China was the greatest beneficiary of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, receiving 8 million tons of commodities, including corn, sunflower meal, sunflower oil, and barley. Putin didn’t personally attend a meeting of the BRICS bloc—which then comprised Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—held in August 2023, but he was given a chance to join virtually. Through Zoom, he guaranteed to the participants that Russian grain would be enough for the whole world and argued that the Ukrainian Black Sea grain corridor would not be so necessary.

Beijing ran with Putin’s idea and signed a nearly $26 million food supply deal with Russia, including grain, legumes, and oilseeds over the next 12 years. That disappointed Ukraine, which had hoped that Beijing could push Russia to continue the Black Sea Grain Initiative. Beijing always describes itself as a globally responsible player. And as a key trade partner of Ukraine, China could become a member of the initiative’s Joint Coordination Center, helping Kyiv supply food to the global market.

This summer, Taras Kachka, Ukraine’s deputy minister of economic development, who serves as the country’s trade representative, was the first senior Ukrainian official to visit Beijing since the start of the full-scale invasion, promoting Ukrainian trade and trying to convince China to advocate for Ukrainian grain exports. It didn’t happen, despite Beijing mentioning the importance of facilitating grain exports from Ukraine in its 12-point position paper on the “Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis.”

The Black Sea Grain Initiative was ultimately terminated, and China has so far found substitutes. But the lack of Ukrainian grain will have a significant impact on global food security—including in China.

China would rather watch than act on Ukraine, distancing itself from sensitive questions. Zelensky and Ukrainian diplomats remain patient with Beijing, but the Chinese role seems mistier than ever.