China sent diplomats around the world to undermine the upcoming “Global Peace Summit” on Ukraine, seeking to promote a more Russia-friendly Chinese peace plan instead, Reuters revealed on Thursday.
Lucerne, Switzerland, is scheduled to host the Global Peace Summit on Saturday, led by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The number of countries participating remains unclear even on the eve of the summit. Reuters reported that over 90 nations and organizations would be represented; other reports suggested the number of countries intending to be present at the summit was at 78 as of this week.
While the United States, a top Ukrainian ally, will be represented at the summit, President Joe Biden declined Zelensky’s call to attend himself, choosing instead to return home for a luxury campaign fundraiser hosted by Hollywood star George Clooney.
Notably, Ukraine did not invite Russia to the summit, so negotiations with the invading party to seek an end to the conflict will be impossible. The Chinese Communist Party declined its invitation to the summit on the grounds that Russia would not be attending.
Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, colonizing its Crimean Peninsula with little international pushback. The colonization prompted a near-decade-long conflict in the eastern Donbass region between the Ukrainian military and the pro-Russian separatist forces that evolved into a full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. In September of that year, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin “annexed” both regions of the Donbass, Luhansk and Donetsk, and the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, expanding Russian control of Ukrainian territory.
The full-scale invasion, which Putin refers to as a “special operation” to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, has continued with little end in sight through the present day. Zelensky first proposed a peace plan at the U.N. General Assembly in September 2022 that largely focused on punishing Russia through sanctions and diplomatic isolation and also included calls for “security guarantees” to prevent a repeat of the conflict. Russia has entirely ignored that peace plan, however, and Ukraine’s allies have continued to arm its military with little pressure to engage in peace negotiations.
A year into the conflict, China – one of Russia’s top allies but a close economic partner of Ukraine’s – introduced its own “peace formula” to end the invasion, which has also gone largely ignored. That plan included vague provisions such as requiring the parties involved to “calm down as soon as possible” and “cease hostilities.”
The Reuters report published Thursday claimed that China was shopping around an updated version of the 2023 peace formula, co-signed by the socialist government of Brazil, to countries potentially participating in the summit in Switzerland. Reuters cited ten anonymous “diplomats” confirming the secret Chinese campaign to undermine the summit. One diplomat called China’s actions a “subtle boycott” of the event. Reuters named Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates as some of the countries Beijing targeted with its anti-summit campaign.
Zelensky made a surprise stop in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, prior to traveling to Italy for the G7 leaders’ summit. Zelensky said in a social media post that he discussed “the inaugural Global Peace Summit preparations, its expected outcomes and their possible implementation” with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, right, meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Wednesday, June 12, 2024. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
“In conversations with developing nations, China has not overtly criticised the Swiss summit or directly asked countries to abstain,” the Beijing-based diplomats told Reuters,” the outlet reported. “But one who was briefed on the outreach said Beijing has told developing nations the meeting would prolong the war.”
Other diplomats said the Chinese officials were claiming to represent the “developing” world with its concerns about the summit. China claims to be a “developing” country despite boasting the world’s second-largest economy.
Reuters asked Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian about the alleged shadow campaign on Friday. Lin confirmed that “China has maintained close communication with Switzerland, Ukraine and other parties on issues related to the summit and encouraged equal participation and fair discussion of all plans at the summit.”
Lin then again promoted the Chinese-Brazilian peace plan, claiming it has “received positive response from over 100 countries.”
China’s absence at the Switzerland summit irked Kyiv. Zelensky himself called China’s declining to participate “unfortunate” and suggested that China had allowed itself to become a puppet of the Russian government: “It is unfortunate that such a big, independent, powerful country as China is an instrument in the hands of Putin.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba later accused the Chinese government of waiting to see who wins the conflict to ensure it would align itself with the winner.
“China is in no rush” to take a side, he said in early June, “for one simple reason – it is critical for them to see how the war between Russia and Ukraine ends.
Russia has repeatedly attempted to insert China into the ongoing conflict. In April 2023, top Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Moscow believes China has “impressive potential for mediation” in the war, “but the situation with Ukraine is still difficult.”
In May this year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the Chinese Communist Party had “an absolutely correct position” on the war and that China was open to offering Ukraine “reliable security guarantees,” without elaborating.
