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ChIna dIploMatIC oFFensIve laYs doWn neW Challenge For Us
would only provide time for Russia to regroup forces that Ukrainians have been succeeding in pushing back for more than a year.
“The world should not be fooled by any tactical move by Russia — supported by China or any other country — to freeze the war on its own terms,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
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But US officials and experts say that China’s diplomacy is not so much about ending the war as an attempt to change the narrative.
Xi “would like to be seen and be taken seriously as a peacemaker,” said Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China.
“He’s more interested in that right now than actually doing specific things to attain peace in Ukraine. This is mostly about messaging.”
The United States has increasingly found success in persuading Western allies to see China as a global threat — a perception that has grown in Europe after US assertions that Beijing is considering supplying weapons to Russia. Daly doubted China would provide major military support unless it sees a serious threat to President Vladimir Putin, Xi’s biggest ally in confronting the United States.
But Daly said Xi casting himself as a mediator could
Sri Lanka leader warns hard
profit AFP
Sri Lanka’s president warned Wednesday of more economic pain to come for the crisis-hit nation, with strict austerity measures needed to restore its ruined finances after an IMF bailout deal.
The International Monetary Fund approved its long-delayed rescue package on Monday after China, the South Asian island’s biggest bilateral lender, offered debt relief assurances.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe lauded the deal in a speech to parliament as a milestone in Sri Lanka’s recovery from last year’s unprecedented economic crisis. But he also told lawmakers that the help at the margins in Europe — and especially in developing nations which share little of the US enthusiasm for preserving an “international rules-based order.”
Xi “doesn’t actually have to move the needle on peace or a ceasefire in Ukraine. All he has to do is profess interest in peace and, somewhat contradictorily, in sovereignty and respecting others’ territorial integrity and he gets what he needs.”
LOw-risk, HigH reward: The United States for years has called on China to assume more global responsibilities commensurate with its aspirations. Blinken allowed that Iran-Saudi reconciliation was a “good thing” even if brokered by China, which relies on oil imports from the rivals.
But China has entered only into selective spots. Iran and Saudi Arabia had already been looking at patching up, and any mediation would have been nearly impossible by the United States which has no diplomatic relations with Iran’s clerical rulers.
James Ryan, director of the Middle East program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said that China’s interest in the two countries was “purely economic.”
“China is not going to be providing security guarantees to this deal,” he said.
Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stim-
