Ultimately, China could live with a continuation of the Ukraine war for strategic reasons. Because the NATO states are currently focusing on Europe and not on the Indo-Pacific. They support Ukraine not only with military equipment, but also with money. Meanwhile, the People’s Republic can continue to arm itself and advance its plans for a possible capture of Taiwan. China views the island republic as part of its own territory and threatens violent reunification if necessary.
So it seems very unlikely that Xi Jinping will help the US end the war in Ukraine. That would simply require a complete political reversal of Chinese policy on the issue – a reversal that is currently not foreseeable. Beijing did not publicly comment on the Ukraine comments after the meeting between Xi and Trump.
But even if the US President’s claims are untrue, they still have a positive effect on the Western alliance on the Ukraine issue.
In the first two years of the war, Xi Jinping was under pressure to position himself in the conflict. China then announced that it would seek peace. But that was a fig leaf because the People’s Republic did not want to portray an image of inaction in its self-image as a superpower. Ultimately, however, there was never any real intensive Chinese effort to advance negotiations.
Nevertheless, international pressure on Beijing fell and the Chinese leadership was able to sit back and do nothing in recent months. Trump is now trying to bring China on board in the negotiation process in order to draw international attention to this situation.
This is likely to displease Xi because he often sells his country as the responsible superpower, especially in discussions with emerging and developing countries. But this only goes hand in hand with Chinese support for Putin, because Beijing has at least always pretended to be trying to find a solution to the conflict. Not just because of the humanitarian catastrophe, but also to curb the negative consequences for world trade. Ultimately, the Americans also know that these attempts were rather half-hearted. Realistically speaking, Trump’s comments are probably less about a chance for peace in Ukraine and more about a strategic point victory for Washington over Xi and Putin.
