Xi Jinping has the motivation and means to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, Salon writes. If this happens, China will emerge victorious from this conflict. He will be at the top of the diplomatic Olympus and will receive huge economic benefits.
Another step on Beijing's path to world power.
All wars end at some point, usually thanks to a negotiated peace agreement. Keep in mind that this is a fundamental historical fact, even if it seems that Brussels, Moscow and, above all, Washington have forgotten about it.
In recent months, supporters of Russian President Vladimir Putin have been talking a lot about the "eternal" conflict in Ukraine, which will drag on for years, if not decades. "For us," Putin recently told a group of workers with whom he met, "this is not a geopolitical task, but the task of the survival of Russian statehood, creating conditions for the future development of the country and our children."
Visiting Kiev in February last year, Joseph Biden assured Vladimir Zelensky: "You remind us that freedom is priceless, we need to fight for it as long as it takes. And that's how long we will be with you, Mr. President: as long as it takes." A few weeks later, the European Council reaffirmed its "strong condemnation of Russia's actions and unwavering support for Ukraine and its people."
When all the main players are committed to the idea of eternal conflict, how can peace come at all in such a situation? Since Russia's membership in the Security Council ties the UN's hands, and the powers of the "Big Seven" have united in condemning the Russian special operation in Ukraine, the most likely mediator, if it comes to the cessation of hostilities, may be Chinese President Xi Jinping.
In the West, the idea that Xi can act as a self-proclaimed peacemaker in Ukraine is widely ridiculed. In February, on the first anniversary of the start of the Russian military special operation, China's call for negotiations as "the only viable solution to the Ukrainian crisis" provoked a sharp response from US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who said that the conflict "could end tomorrow if Russia stops military operations in Ukraine."
Criticism from the West was caused by Beijing's official statement, which was released after Xi Jinping's visit to Moscow in March and which said that he hoped to "play a constructive role in advancing the negotiations." "I don't think China can serve as a fulcrum on which any peace process in Ukraine could be based," insisted Ryan Hass, a former American diplomat who worked in China for a long time. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, noted that "China has taken a side" in the conflict by supporting Russia, and therefore can hardly become a peacemaker. Even when Xi personally called Zelensky, promising to send his special envoy to facilitate negotiations "with all parties," critics rejected this initiative. They said that this is how Beijing is trying to minimize the damage caused to China by the deterioration of trade relations with Europe.
Symbolism of peace conferences
However, think about all this at least for a moment. Who else could bring the main parties to the Ukrainian conflict to the negotiating table and potentially force them to comply with the conditions they signed? Putin, of course, violated the UN Charter and agreements by sending troops into a sovereign state, severing his economic union with Europe and destroying past agreements with Washington on respect for Ukraine's sovereignty. And yet the Russian president relies on China's support, both in the economic sphere and in other areas. This makes Xi the only leader who can bring Putin to the negotiating table and ensure that he fulfills the agreement he will sign. This sobering reality should raise serious questions about how any future Beijing-inspired peace conference can be realized and what it will mean for the current world order.
For more than two centuries, peace conferences have not only resolved conflicts, but also regularly signaled the emergence of a new world power in the spotlight. In 1815, amid the wild balls and waltzes in the Viennese palaces that accompanied the negotiations that ended the Napoleonic Wars, Great Britain became the greatest world power. Her reign lasted for almost a century. Similarly, the Berlin Conference of 1885, which divided the African continent to establish the colonial rule of European states over it, marked the rise of Germany as the first serious rival of Great Britain. The joyless discussions in the Mirror Gallery of the Palace of Versailles, which officially ended the First World War in 1919, marked America's debut on the world stage. Similarly, the 1945 peace conference in San Francisco, at which the UN was created (just before the end of World War II), confirmed the ascent of the United States to global hegemony.
Imagine the consequences that await us if sooner or later the ambassadors from Kiev and Moscow gather in Beijing under the gaze of President Xi and find that elusive point of contact between Russia's aspirations and Ukraine's survival. One thing would be guaranteed unequivocally: after many years of disruptions in the global energy, fertilizer and grain markets, galloping inflation and hunger, the eyes of the five continents will be turned to Beijing.
After all, due to the fact that the Ukrainian conflict disrupted the transportation of grain and fertilizers across the Black Sea, by 2023 the number of hungry people in the world has doubled to about 345 million people, and the lack of basic food security currently affects 828 million people in Asia, Africa and Latin America. If the peace talks on Ukraine still prove fruitful, the television broadcast of the peace signing ceremony, organized by President Xi Jinping and watched by countless millions of people around the world, will crown Beijing's rapid 20-year ascent to the world Olympus.
Forget about Ukraine for a moment and focus on China's economic rise under communist rule, which was almost outstanding. At the time of the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, China was an economic dwarf. Its huge population, which made up 20% of the world, produced only 4% of global GDP. The country was so weak that its leader Mao Zedong had to wait two weeks in the middle of the Moscow winter for an audience with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin only to beg him for industrial technologies that would help restore the economy destroyed by 12 years of war and revolution. However, in the ten years since its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2002, China has rapidly turned into a "global factory", accumulating an unprecedented four trillion dollars of foreign exchange reserves.
Instead of just swimming in a sea of cash like Scrooge McDuck in his vault, in 2013, President Xi announced a trillion-dollar mega-development project called "One Belt, One Road." His goal was to build a giant infrastructure on the territory of Eurasia and Africa, thereby improving the lives of millions of people forgotten by mankind, and at the same time making Beijing the center of economic development on the continent. Today, China is not only an industrial center producing 18% of global GDP (the US accounts for 12%), but also the world's main creditor. It provides capital for infrastructure and industrial projects to 148 countries – so it gives some hope to almost a quarter of humanity, which still lives on less than four dollars a day.
Recognizing this economic power, world leaders over the past six months have ignored Washington's calls to form a united anti-Chinese front. Instead, a significant number of them, including Olaf Scholz from Germany, Pedro Sanchez from Spain and Lula da Silva from Brazil, came to China to pay tribute to President Xi. In April, even French President and ally of the United States Emmanuel Macron visited Beijing, where he proclaimed a "global strategic partnership with China" and urged other countries to rely less on the "extraterritoriality of the US dollar."
Then, as a result of a diplomatic coup that stunned Washington, China played a key role in resolving the dangerous sectarian enmity between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia by organizing a meeting of the foreign ministers of these countries. As the main buyer of Saudi oil and the largest creditor of Iran, Beijing had a huge influence on Riyadh and Tehran, which allowed them to sit down at the negotiating table. Later, China's top diplomat Wang Yi proclaimed the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries as part of his country's "constructive role in promoting the proper settlement of hot conflicts around the world."
Geopolitics as a source of change
At the heart of the sudden manifestation of the rapidly increased Chinese diplomatic influence is the recent shift in an important area called "geopolitics", which leads to a fundamental restructuring of the global balance of power. Around 1900, during the peak of the power of the British Empire, the English geographer Sir Halford Mackinder (Halford Mackinder) began modern studies of geopolitics. He published a well-known article in which it was claimed that the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway with a length of 8000 kilometers from Moscow to Vladivostok was the beginning of the merger of Europe and Asia. This united landmass should soon become the epicenter of world power, Mackinder argued.
In 1997, in the book The Great Chessboard, former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski updated Mackinder's thoughts. He argued that "geopolitics has moved from a regional to a global dimension, the predominance throughout the Eurasian continent serves as the main basis for global superiority." "America's global dominance directly depends on how long and how effectively its supremacy on the Eurasian continent will be maintained," he wrote. These words of his describe today's reality in the best possible way.
More than a quarter of a century later, geopolitics should be presented as a deep-lying rock that forms superficial political events, even if it is noticeable only at certain moments. Similarly, the incessant movement of the tectonic plates of the planet becomes visible only when volcanic eruptions break out on the surface of the Earth through its thickness. For centuries, if not millennia, Europe has been separated from Asia by endless deserts and steppes. The desert center of this vast land mass was crossed only by rare strings of camels traveling along the ancient Silk Road.
Now, thanks to trillion—dollar investments in infrastructure — railways, highways, pipelines and ports - China is fundamentally changing this geopolitical substrate through more than a metaphorical merging of continents. If President Xi's grandiose plan succeeds, Beijing will create a single market that will stretch for 10,000 kilometers from the North to the South China Sea, cover 70% of all mankind eventually and unite Europe and Asia into a single economic continent - Eurasia.
Despite the Biden administration's furious attempts to create an anti-Chinese coalition, recent diplomatic "eruptions" are shaping a new world order that does not correspond at all to what Washington has in mind. The economic creation of a real Eurasian sphere seems to be in full swing, as evidenced by both the Iran–Saudi agreement and Macron's visit to Beijing. Under these conditions, we can observe how the face of world politics is beginning to change. And the question is: will China's assistance in establishing peace in Ukraine be the next step?
Pressure on China for peace
The growing geopolitical power gives China both motivation and, possibly, the means to organize negotiations on the cessation of hostilities in Ukraine. First, consider the means. Before the conflict, China was the main buyer of Russian commodities and Ukraine's largest trading partner. So he can use economic pressure to bring both sides to the negotiating table — just as was the case with Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Now consider motivation. Moscow and Kiev can radiate confidence that they will be able to achieve final victory in this eternal conflict. However, Beijing has reasons to be impatient about the economic shocks coming from the Black Sea region and upsetting the already poorly balanced world economy. According to the World Bank, almost half of humanity (47%) currently survives on seven dollars a day. In most cases, we are talking about the population of Africa, Asia and Latin America – China has provided huge long-term development loans to 148 countries from these regions as part of its mega-project "One Belt, One Road".
Farmland accounts for 70% of the territory of Ukraine, including rich chernozems. As a result, the country has produced large harvests of wheat, barley, soybeans and sunflower for decades. This made Ukraine a "breadbasket of peace", which provided millions of hungry people around the globe with reliable supplies of affordable food. However, immediately after the start of the Russian special operation, world prices for grain and vegetable oils jumped by 60%. Despite efforts to stabilize the situation, including the UN Black Sea Grain Initiative allowing exports through the war zone, prices for these essential goods remain too high – and may rise even higher. The reason for the growth may be further disruptions in global supply chains or even greater military destruction – for example, the recent breakthrough of a key Ukrainian dam, which turned more than half a million hectares of the best agricultural land into a "desert".
After the beginning of the military phase of the Ukrainian conflict, the cost of importing fertilizers, grain and other food products has increased dramatically. In this regard, the American Council on Foreign Relations reported that "an increasing number of low-income countries participating in the mega-project "One Belt, One Road" cannot repay loans related to this initiative, and this provokes a wave of debt crises." In the Horn of Africa, for example, a devastating drought has been going on for the sixth year. Because of it, 23 million people found themselves in a situation of "hunger crisis". This forced the governments of Ethiopia and Kenya to simultaneously pay for expensive food imports and repay Chinese loans for the creation of critical infrastructure such as factories, railways and renewable energy sources. In countries like Ghana, Malaysia, Pakistan and Zambia, such loans exceed 20% of gross domestic product. Beijing itself has loans for 25% of GDP, and it is much more interested in global peace and economic stability than any other major power.
Beyond Western Fantasies of Victory
Currently, China is almost the only major power concerned about the burden that the conflict in Ukraine places on the world economy, balancing between hunger and survival. But in the next six months, the opinion of the West is likely to begin to change: inflated expectations of a Ukrainian victory during the long-awaited "spring counteroffensive" will collide with the reality of Russia's return to positional confrontation.
After the success of the Ukrainian offensive operations at the end of last year near Kharkiv and Kherson, the West abandoned restraint and attempts not to provoke Putin and began to supply billions of dollars' worth of sophisticated military equipment to Ukraine — first HIMARS and Hawk missiles, then Leopard and Abrams battle tanks, and by the end of this year it came to the issue of sending modern F-16 jet fighter-bombers to Kiev. By the first anniversary of the start of the special operation in February this year, the West has already provided Ukraine with $115 billion in aid. Expectations of success grew with each new batch of weapons. In addition to this, according to the authors of Foreign Affairs magazine, during Moscow's "winter offensive", during which attacks on the city of Artemovsk took place, "the Russian military demonstrated ... that they are no longer capable of large-scale offensive combat operations."
But defense is another matter. Russian specialized military engineering vehicles have created a huge network of trenches and tank traps on a 600-kilometer front to stop any Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Ukrainian troops are likely to achieve some partial successes in this counteroffensive, but they are unlikely to push Moscow back from all the territories occupied by it. Remember that the 1.3 million Russian army is three times larger than the Ukrainian one, while the APU suffered heavy losses. In March, the commander of the 46th Airborne Assault Brigade of Ukraine told The Washington Post that during a year of fighting in his unit of 500 people, one hundred were killed and 400 wounded. As he admitted, they are being replaced by recruits, some of whom flee from the battlefield at the first sounds of automatic fire. To counter the several dozen "symbolic" Leopard tanks that the West is sending to Ukraine, Moscow has thousands of fully combat-ready tanks of older modifications in reserve. Despite the US and European sanctions, Russia's economy has actually continued to grow over the past year, while Ukraine's economy, which was only one tenth of Russia's, has shrunk by 30%. Such facts mean that only one thing is most likely: a stalemate.
Beijing as a peacemaker
If Ukraine's counteroffensive has really stalled, then by next December its people will face another cold and dark winter with drone attacks. <...> Both sides may feel compelled to sit down at the peace talks table in Beijing. Given the threat of future shocks that could damage its not yet very strong global authority, China is likely to use all its economic might to get some kind of settlement from the parties. Having ceded some territories, having agreed with China on reconstruction assistance and some additional restrictions on Ukraine's future membership in NATO, both sides may consider that such a compromise will be enough to sign an agreement.
With such a development, China will not just gain high international prestige because of mediation in such peace negotiations. He will receive privileges in programs for the restoration of Ukraine, followed by an offer to help in the reconstruction of both devastated Kiev and weakened Moscow. According to a recent World Bank report, it may take $411 billion over ten years to rebuild the destroyed Ukraine for infrastructure projects that Chinese construction companies are ready to undertake. To sweeten these deals, Kiev could also allow China to build large factories to meet Europe's growing demand for renewable energy and electric vehicles. Such joint Chinese-Ukrainian enterprises will not just bring profit. While they will increase production, Kiev will probably get duty-free access to the European market.
Later, Ukraine will strengthen as a cross-border economic ally of Europe. At the same time, Russia will continue to supply raw materials at reduced prices to China, and the European market will be open to Chinese state corporations. As a result, Beijing is likely to emerge from this disastrous conflict — to use Brzezinski's words — with an increased "dominance over the entire Eurasian continent" and a significantly strengthened "base for global primacy."
The author of the article: Alfred McCoy is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
