BRUSSELS — European countries hoping China will rein in Russia and bolster security on the continent are courting disaster, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told POLITICO.
“Can you imagine [China] suddenly becoming a guarantor of peace in Europe?” he asked in an interview on the sidelines of this week’s NATO summit of foreign ministers in Brussels. Lithuania is the European Union’s leading China hawk, building close ties with Taiwan and warning of Beijing’s aggressive foreign policy.
China has played an ambiguous role during the war. It has promised a “no limits” friendship with Russia and has been accused by the United States of sending lethal weapons to Moscow — a charge Beijing strenuously denies.
However, China has also presented a peace plan together with Brazil. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy initially denounced the plan as “destructive” because it did not call for Russia to withdraw its forces, but in recent weeks has been more positive about some of its ideas.
Western officials are pressing for China to cut itself off from Russia and to more actively seek to end the war.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock used a visit to the Chinese capital on Monday to call on her hosts to back an international peace process, arguing an end to the war is in the interests of the entire international community.
“The Russian president is not only destroying our European peace order through his war against Ukraine, but is now dragging Asia into it via North Korea,” she said, after Pyongyang deployed troops to support Vladimir Putin’s war effort.
Baerbock pointed to China’s standing as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and pressed for it to promote peace and security, not “fuel conflicts that threaten the security of us all with its support.”
However, while a Chinese readout of the meeting acknowledged Baerbock’s requests, it emphasized that Beijing reiterated its “position on promoting peace talks.”
In July, Ukraine’s former foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, visited China in an effort to reset relations and find “common ground” with Beijing. While the government of President Xi Jinping has sought to pitch itself as a peace broker, it has simultaneously become Russia’s top trade partner, racing to fill the gap left by Western businesses.
Publicly, China insists it is neutral in the conflict and maintains “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be respected.” But it has also used Moscow’s catastrophic invasion to strengthen its hand in relations with the Kremlin, while cashing in on Russian consumers’ desire for goods in the wake of Western sanctions.
“This is why they are helping to keep Russia afloat,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.
In separate comments to POLITICO, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur also cast doubt on the prospect of Beijing stepping in to help resolve the war in Ukraine.
“Even when somebody is thinking of that theoretically — practically I don’t see any possible options for that — that China will do something which is against Russian interests,” he said.