Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang begins Monday a visit to Europe that will take him successively to Germany, France and Norway at a time when his country intends to play a mediating role in the war in Ukraine.
China, which despite its proximity to Russia is presenting itself as a neutral interlocutor in the conflict in Ukraine, published a 12-point document in February setting out its position on the conflict. The initiative, sometimes seen as a peace plan, calls on Moscow and Kiev in particular to hold talks.
A long-awaited phone call in late April between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the first since the Russian offensive in Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, raised hopes of a breakthrough on this point.
In this regard, Qin Gang will meet this week with his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock, French diplomat chief Catherine Colonna and Norwegian foreign minister Anniken Huitfeldt, a diplomats spokesman told Chinese journalist Wang Wenbin on Monday.
However, no details were given on the topics that will be discussed during this trip.
During an official visit to China in April, French President Emmanuel Macron urged his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to “bring Russia to some sense” on Ukraine.
Xi Jinping, who visited Moscow in March, has close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Stop the War”
China, which has not publicly condemned the war in Ukraine, has greatly expanded its political and economic cooperation with its Russian neighbor in recent months.
In Europe, Qin Gang will meet German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who during a visit to China in mid-April called on Beijing to “ask the Russian aggressor to end the war in Ukraine.”
The Chinese foreign minister’s trip also comes after controversial statements made by the Chinese ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, at the end of April.
The ambassador had questioned whether the Crimean Peninsula, which had been occupied by Moscow since 2014, belonged to Ukraine.
“It depends on how we perceive this problem. There is history. Crimea was part of Russia at the very beginning. It was Khrushchev who offered Crimea to Ukraine in the Soviet Union era,” argued the diplomat.
Continuing his argument, he believed that the countries of the former USSR “have no effective status in international law because there is no international agreement to concretize their status as sovereign countries”.
These statements had triggered an outcry in the countries concerned.
Paris then asked the Chinese ambassador “to use his public speech, which corresponds to his country’s official positions”.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning distanced himself from the statements made by the diplomat based in the French capital, assuring that China “respects the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all countries”.