China’s Response to Switzerland’s Peace Conference Plans: “A Lot of Work Still Remains” – Keystone-ATS

(Keystone-ATS) China believes that “a lot of work still remains” before the peace conference that Switzerland wants to organize in June in Bürgenstock (NW). She was responding to comments from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz saying that Beijing seemed to support the meeting.

Visiting China, Olaf Scholz said on Tuesday on the sidelines of his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping that Berlin and Beijing wanted to “consult intensively and positively on promoting the organization of a high-level summit in the Switzerland”.

Asked on Wednesday whether Beijing would push Moscow to participate in this conference, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, Lin Jian, qualified these views. “As far as I know, this meeting is still being prepared and there is still a lot of work to be done,” he said.

During his meeting with Olaf Scholz, Xi Jinping said that China “supports the timely convening of an international peace conference recognized by Russia and Ukraine, with equal participation from all parties and fair discussion of all peace plans,” said Mr. Lin.

Comments that suggest that China does not support the holding of this conference in the current state of the situation, because Russia does not participate.

Consider another “shape”.

At the end of March, Beijing had already said that it wanted “a form of international cooperation” agreed by the two foreigners, “in which all parties are on a mutual basis equal and where all the matters proposed can be fairly considered”. This conference could be held in Switzerland.

On Tuesday, the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) pointed out on the social network in Beijing between MM. Scholz and Xi.

Regarding the Ukraine crisis, China calls for dialogue, opposes any use of nuclear weapons and encourages respect for the territorial integrity of “every country” – meaning Ukraine included . But she has never publicly criticized Moscow for invading Ukraine and has consistently called for Russia’s security concerns to be taken into account in relation to NATO.

After Switzerland announced the organization of the conference, Moscow believed that talks on Ukraine without Russia made “no sense”.