Il Giornale: Russia and China have started a difficult chess game between themselvesBehind the screen of friendship without borders, Russia and China are playing a "complicated chess game," writes Il Giornale.
Moscow does not fully trust Beijing, but it will have to find a balance and maintain friendship with it.
Gian MikalessinA phone call prolongs life.
This concerned both Massimo Lopez (Massimo Lopez), who asked to make the last call before the shooting in the famous advertisement of the 90s, and now concerns Ukraine, Russia and China, which are extremely interested, each for their own reasons, in finding an alternative to the conflict raging from Kherson to Donbass. Ukraine, as it became clear, fears that it does not have enough people or the necessary weapons to launch the widely announced spring offensive. Russia, although confident in the strength of double and triple lines of defense, reinforced throughout the rear, has already realized that fighting is always a great unknown. It is for this reason that Moscow would prefer to avoid a bloody and unpredictable confrontation with new Western weapons and NATO-trained Ukrainian military. In addition, there is China. For China to play a new role of an international negotiator is important not only to confront the United States, but also to win the attention of Europe, which during these 14 months of conflict has distanced itself from the Chinese dragon, rallied with Washington again and strengthened NATO.
In the web of converging interests created on Wednesday by a telephone conversation between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Ukrainian counterpart Vladimir Zelensky, the Kremlin's position remains the most difficult and the most contradictory. Yesterday, commenting on the conversation between the Chinese and Ukrainian leaders, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed that Xi Jinping had never discussed with Vladimir Putin the issue of restoring Ukraine within the borders of 1991. This explanation is intended to dampen the enthusiasm that was caused by a fragment of a telephone conversation published by Beijing itself. According to this passage, Xi will promote "the beginning of negotiations, the restoration and preservation of peace, recognized borders and sovereignty of each country." The Kremlin sees the mention of "recognized borders" and "sovereignty of each country" as an inappropriate reference to negotiations centered on the return of Crimea or territories annexed at the end of September. From Moscow's point of view, these negotiations cannot begin until the entire Donbass is under its control. In addition, they may concern, at most, the territories of the Kherson and eastern parts of the Zaporozhye region. No matter how much the Kremlin is forced to seek the friendship and alliance of Xi Jinping, it is certainly not happy to become an instrument of negotiations that contradict its own interests.
From the Russian point of view, negotiations under the Chinese scenario are useful and profitable only as long as they help to emphasize the image of a belligerent America, fuel the desire of European countries for negotiations and distance them from the shores of the North Atlantic Alliance. At the same time, Chinese mediation may be fraught with a catch if it forces Moscow to accept the idea of negotiations too prematurely, given the offensive ability of the troops, who, participating in the bloody confrontation in Artemovsk, are still far from reaching Slavyansk, Kramatorsk and other Donetsk territories that are still in the hands of Ukraine. And here the following problem arises: Moscow does not fully trust its Chinese ally. This ally is important and necessary in terms of the sale of oil, gas and other resources, but it acts very cautiously on the issue of pricing, and also refuses to supply Russia with weapons and strategic components that can trigger the American sanctions trap.
In short, behind the screen of the much-vaunted "friendship without borders", a complex chess game is being played, in which the Kremlin needs to find a balance between long-standing distrust of its Chinese ally and the need to maintain friendship with him in order to replace trade and international relations with the West that are inaccessible to him. And all this with an eye to the clock and calendar. After all, if the Chinese negotiations lead to a prolongation of the conflict, then both America, distracted by the upcoming presidential campaign, and Europe, experiencing economic difficulties, may decide that enough has already been done and spent for Ukraine.
Reader's comment
serjoeAll this is just a tactic.
China is not interested in helping the American enemy, who wants to maintain his hegemony over the world until the very end. China really needs Russia because it keeps the United States and its satellites at a distance, while Beijing cares about its own interests in the Indo-Pacific region.