This Q&A was adapted from a Carnegie China live event assessing China-Ukraine relations. It has been edited for clarity.
Ellen Nakashima: Long, you mentioned the twelve-point peace plan, and the number one point in the plan is respect for territorial integrity, which China has long espoused and has recognized that Ukraine has a right to its territorial integrity. Do you think China might be willing to use some of its influence with Russia, or Xi with Putin, to try to advocate for Ukraine to ensure that it keeps more of its territory that Russia has taken over the last three years?
Zhao Long: I think there are a lot of misinterpretations about China’s position regarding sovereignty and territorial integrity. I personally believe that China has left almost zero ambiguity regarding sovereignty and territorial integrity. Looking back to what happened in Yugoslavia, China never recognized Kosovo’s independence. China never recognized the outcome of the Russia-Georgia war in 2008, and the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. China never officially recognized the status of Crimea as part of Russia.
So, I think in the future, whatever ceasefire or peace agreement could be reached, China will be very cautious and will uphold its position, which is supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity regarding those eastern parts of the country. But if it comes to the question of whether China could do more, I think China has already done a lot from our official statements, from our positions at the UN Security Council, and various platforms, reassuring that all of these disputes, all these disagreements regarding the territorial issues, should be resolved through political and diplomatic ways, not by military means. I think this is a quite strong argument which reflects China’s position.
But if you ask me whether China is willing to stand up and say that it is totally against those areas controlled by Russia—and that Russia should give them back—look, China is not a party directly involved in the war. How could you expect China to say such a thing?
Another argument—Chinese approaches are always goal-driven or goal-oriented. If such a statement could resolve the problem and bring peace, I think China may consider it. But if not, given the determinations of Moscow, given the complexity of all those issues, I think it’s really up to the party directly involved to decide.
Ellen Nakashima: What do you think, Pavlo? And perhaps bringing in the idea of China using its position as a leader of the Global South, along with other countries, to marshal an argument using moral persuasion in this diplomatic arena.
Pavlo Klimkin: Well, the rationale behind the Chinese position that Long just mentioned is really a great description for me. Yes, China is always committed to key UN principles. But in Europe, commitment to principles means that sometimes you need to figure out how to deliver on them. And the Chinese position is really goal-oriented. It’s a cautious position and China will always calculate its actions based on the risk factor. There was a lot of fuss about the Chinese position and stating of the twelve principles. But it’s important to understand what is behind this position and its rationale.
Second, we are now in a different reality, where simply committing to these twelve principles or six-point plan does not work anymore. Now the choice for China is either to start providing a sort of format or to engage in other formats. It’s one set of decisions China has to dive into.
The second set of decisions is whether China can contribute on the ground. Peacekeeping is tricky because how do you deter the Russians with the help of the Chinese; how will it play out? But I can really imagine the Chinese side contributing, for example, to monitoring and assessment missions.
Of course, there should be Security Council resolutions for China. The point is what kind of resolution. If it’s the lowest denominator, it would basically constrain all participating parties, including China. If it’s something real, how do you get to a real resolution with a real mandate?
And the third point, China probably would love to play the role of the leader in the non-Western world. But it’s also a turning point for China now because we have a network of different projects and formats. Playing a role in the Ukraine war would probably define China’s role as a leader of the non-Western world. If China decides to act on a point of European security, it would be groundbreaking. It would change the perception of China, not only in Europe, but also in the non-Western world.
But again, it would come with both risks and opportunities. Normally, China has been trying to get prepared for everything and will only make moves if the probability of success is over 90 percent. I’m not sure China acting on Ukraine now has over a 90 percent chance of success. Because there are going to be ups and downs in the future situation.
Ellen Nakashima: What do you think, Long?
Zhao Long: In general, I agree with what Pavlo has just mentioned.
But I think Beijing nowadays is really trying to navigate the overall situation regarding Ukraine, especially the substance of interactions between Washington and Moscow. There’s a lot of information that we should digest. My concern here is whether President Trump is still interested in China’s role in this so-called U.S.-led peace process. Does he really want China to take over the helm? I’m not quite sure. If Trump’s talks with the Russians fail, only at that time will the U.S. have an interest in China’s involvement in the process. As Pavlo mentioned earlier, it’s up to China to decide whether it should act and define its role in Ukraine.
Another concern is, as Pavlo correctly mentioned, China really values the credibility of its policies. So, if there are still a huge number of uncertain factors, I think China will be very cautious before doing something ambitious.
Ellen Nakashima: Allusion to Trump. What do you think, Eric? Do you think President Trump is interested in having China be a part of this peace process?
Eric Ciaramella: Well, as Long has noted, there have been some pretty confusing signals. On the one hand, President Trump has stated that President Xi should get involved and help solve the conflict, and it’s within Xi’s power to persuade Putin to end the war, and so on and so forth.
On the other hand, the administration has clearly developed a very strong policy of competing with China and constraining China’s role. We’ve seen hawks like Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz, and others going in that direction. And so, I do think it’s largely unclear what, if any, role this administration expects China to play.
But I wouldn’t underestimate the possibility of, again, President Trump, who has taken a very unconventional approach to this kind of personal high-level diplomacy, as we saw in his first term with North Korea and so on, to convene some sort of meeting and do some kind of outreach, perhaps at odds with or in tension with some of the policies that his administration is pursuing when it comes to sanctions and export controls on China. So, I think it’s going to be a real challenge for officials in Beijing to really interpret what the U.S. intention here is. Whereas during the Biden administration, we saw Jake Sullivan traveling and trying to test out Chinese positions and see whether China was willing to play a constructive role, and the Chinese response was, well, what’s in it for us? You have all these policies that are harming our national interests, so are we going to have a broader U.S.-China dialogue? And that was the previous framework.
And now we’re in, as Pavlo was describing, much more of a roller coaster period where you could have some very significant outreach from Trump and significant promises and maybe a real chance of some upside for China, but also huge risk, both in engaging and in not engaging. And I think that’s where the challenge comes in just predicting the directionality of U.S. policy here.
