Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba published a live video on Facebook this weekend defending the Chinese Communist Party from allegations that a special delegation from Beijing that visited Kyiv this month pressured Ukraine to cede occupied territories to Russia.
Kuleba – who met personally with the delegation and its leader, former Chinese ambassador to Russia Li Hui – said that, following a report accusing China of fighting for Russian interests published in the Wall Street Journal, he reached out to other foreign diplomats who met with the delegation and could not find any to confirm the story.
Kuleba’s defense of China is the latest in a string of compliments and defenses out of the Ukrainian government backing China, which President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly and enthusiastically encouraged to meddle in the conflict. Zelensky has repeatedly urged genocidal Chinese dictator Xi Jinping to speak with him – which Xi did in April – and “Chinese businesses” to rebuild the war-torn regions of Ukraine once the conflict ends. Ukraine is a member of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), its global debt trap program to erode the sovereignty of poorer nations, and has not vocalized any significant condemnation of the Communist Party’s human rights atrocities and genocide of the indigenous communities of occupied East Turkistan.
China, one of Russia’s closest allies, has insisted it is neutral in the conflict while opposing sanctions on Russia or any policies that harm Russia’s interests.
Li and his team launched a European tour on May 15 that began in Kyiv and ended in Moscow, with stops in Poland, France, and Germany along the way. According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the tour was intended to promote China’s “political settlement” plan to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine through dialogue. The Chinese plan calls for both sides to “calm down as soon as possible” but does not urge Russia to withdraw from Ukraine or support sanctions on Russia for its invasion.
Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, colonizing the southern Crimea region and maintaining an illegal political presence there to this day. The country spent much of the eight years prior to the current invasion aiding separatists in the eastern Donbass region, where war has continued unabated for nearly a decade. In February 2022, Russian leader Vladimir Putin announced an expansion of this occupation, a “special operation” intended to oust the democratically elected Zelensky on the grounds that he is a “Nazi.” The “special operation” has continued in the capital and much of eastern Ukraine; Putin “annexed” the two Donbass regions, Donetsk and Luhansk, along with Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in September.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy arrive for a working session at the Elysee Palace Monday, Dec. 9, 2019, in Paris (Ian Langsdon/Pool via AP).
Reports from Li’s time in Ukraine indicated that he did not address the “annexations” or any specifics about the war, instead simply demanding that the Ukrainians “build up trust” with their invader and “create conditions for ceasefire and peace talks.”
The Wall Street Journal article that prompted Kuleba’s response cited, as is typically for the corporate American media outlet, anonymous sources that claimed Li’s primary objective in the trip was to sell China as an “economic alternative to Washington,” rather than discuss Ukraine at all. To the extent that Li addressed the war, according to the anonymous alleged “Western officials,” he urged the Ukrainians and other European diplomats to accept “leaving Russia in possession of the parts of its smaller neighbor that it now occupies.”
“I immediately contacted my colleagues in the capitals that he visited,” Kuleba said in his Facebook video on Saturday. “None of them confirmed that any negotiations were held about recognizing the Ukrainian territories where Russia stay[s] now [as Russian].”
“Therefore, I urge you to keep a cool head and use your common sense. There is no need to behave and react emotionally to every article. We control the process,” Kuleba urged Ukrainians:
The Ukrainian foreign minister said his country would continue to involve China in the conflict, “but it will be conducted according to three basic principles. The first is respect for territorial integrity. The second is no initiatives that involve any territorial concessions by Ukraine. And the third is no frozen conflict. Ukraine will achieve victory.”
Asked about the Wall Street Journal rumors on Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning directed reporters to Kuleba’s video. Mao also celebrated Li’s visit to Ukraine and Russia as influential.
“All parties attach high importance to Special Representative Li Hui’s visit, fully recognize China’s positive role in promoting talks for peace,” Mao claimed, “commend China’s call for respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity and observing the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and express the hope that China will continue to exercise its constructive influence.”
Mao vowed that dictator Xi would continue his campaign to elevate China’s profile through the conflict, “strengthen dialogue and communication with all parties, continue to build up common understandings and mutual trust, encourage the international community to find the broadest common understandings and make China’s contributions to a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech via video at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2022, on April 21, 2022 (Photo: Xinhua News Agency/People’s Republic of China).
The Chinese state-run Global Times newspaper, its most belligerent English-language mouthpiece, condemned the Wall Street Journal as peddling “disinformation” and celebrated Kuleba.
“The latest WSJ report is part of the disinformation campaign which even some Ukrainian officials who have friendly ties with the West like Kuleba can no longer tolerate, and this shows how groundless and childish those claims were,” a Global Times Chinese regime-approved “expert” bellowed.
On Sunday, the newspaper proclaimed that Li’s tour proved China would “be more actively involved in international affairs in the future” regardless of its overt irrelevance to the affairs in question.
Xi Jinping himself appeared to make that promise during a visit to Moscow during which he declared China would “stand guard over the world order based on international law.” Xi’s friendly visit to the invading country followed a year of Zelensky urging him to engage the Ukrainians and preceded a phone call with Zelensky a month later in which Xi promised to send Li’s delegation to Ukraine.
Zelensky has repeatedly defended China from accusations of supporting Russia. In May 2022, Zelensky told a video conference at the World Economic Forum that he was “satisfied” with China “staying away” from the conflict.
“China has chosen the policy of staying away. At the moment, Ukraine is satisfied with this policy. It is better than helping the Russian Federation in any case. And I want to believe that China will not pursue another policy. We are satisfied with this status quo, to be honest,” Zelensky said. “Although there is a rather good and long history between the countries [Ukraine and China]. Therefore, I would like to have an advantage in these relations compared to Russia.”
“It’s a very powerful state. It’s a powerful economy … So (it) can politically, economically influence Russia. And China is [also a] permanent member of the U.N. Security Council,” Zelensky told the South China Morning Post in August. “This is a war on our territory, they came to invade. China, as a big and powerful country, could come down and sort of put the Russian Federation [in] a certain place.”
In that interview, Zelensky also asked “Chinese businesses” to help rebuild Ukraine.