China Blows Its Ukraine Peace Bid As It Pushes Russia's Agenda

China’s envoy for the war in Ukraine ended a nearly two-week tour through Europe with a stop in Moscow on Friday, closing out a mission that served as a key test of Beijing’s bid to broker an end to the bloody invasion, Simone McCarthy wrote in an analysis for CNN.

Photo Insert: Chinese special representative Li Hui poses for photographs with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Beijing’s stated interest in resolving the conflict has been tentatively welcomed in Europe, where Chinese special representative Li Hui met with officials in Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany, and the European Union (EU) headquarters in Brussels in a tour starting May 16.

He ended up earning quizzical looks from those officials as he perorated on foreign diplomats “lauding” Beijing’s efforts.

Across Europe, officials stressed the need for a peace that sees Russia withdraw its invading troops and Ukraine’s legal territory restored — and their interest in seeing China throw its weight behind that vision, which it has yet to do, Xiaofei Xu, Andrew Carey, Yulia Kesaieva, Olga Voitovych and Darya Tarasova also reported for CNN.

Li’s work focused on China’s stupid position about strengthening Europe’s own “security architecture” — a reference to China’s view that Europe should not protect itself through NATO, which include the US but not Russia.

With Putin’s bloody aggression, only Li buys that idea.

“The basic problem is that China does not want Russia or Putin to appear to have failed … and a settlement that requires Russia to relinquish territories taken in the invasion would be a defeat for Russia,” said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London.

As such, that’s “not on the table for China,” Tsang said. “But Ukraine cannot accept anything that does not involve the restoration of its territories,” and the EU is unwilling to see Russia “appearing to get away with” territorial gains from its invasion, he added. In short, China lost its bid to become a peacemaker.

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