The British government has pleaded with Communist dictator Xi Jinping to ask Vladimir Putin to stop “some” of the atrocities Russia is alleged to be inflicting on Ukraine on his trip to Moscow.
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) supremo Xi Jinping is in the Russian capital for a high-level summit with President Vladimir Putin, which comes despite significant pressure from the West not to deepen ties with or engage in outright support for Russia as its “special military operation” in Ukraine wears on.
“China has spoken previously about the importance of respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity in Ukraine,” said the Official Spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in response to the trip, in comments quoted by The Telegraph.
“We would like to see President Xi advocate for this point when he speaks to Putin. This war and its assault on Ukraine’s sovereignty could end today if Russia withdrew its troops from Ukraine,” they added, in what detractors of British diplomacy might describe as a statement of the obvious.
“So we hope President Xi uses this opportunity to press President Putin to cease bombing Ukrainian cities, hospitals, schools, and to halt some of these atrocities that we are seeing on a daily basis.”
The incredibly low expectations set by the strangely-worded request — which appears to imply that Putin not be expected to halt all his alleged atrocities — may give some indication of how successful the British expect it to be.
Xi’s trip to Russia comes in many ways as a rebuke to the West, which has in recent weeks been warning China not to begin engaging in more overt support for the Kremlin.
Officially, Peking (Beijing) opposes the war, but in practical terms it has been carrying water for Moscow, with officials openly pronouncing that the “real threat” to world peace is the United States shortly after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine commenced last February.
The European Union, like America, has been at particular pains to warn Beijing that supplying weapons to Russia would cross a “red line” and have “consequences” — although it has since been claimed that Chinese companies, including a very large state-owned defence contractor, have been shipping materiel including drone parts, rifles, and body armour to Russia, with no sign of really impactful “consequences” following the revelations.
Other important Western partners, including Israel, India, and NATO member Turkey, have also refrained from engaging in the Western sanctions war with Russia, and in some cases have used the economic clash to improve their own positions.
Indeed, India’s G20 summit negotiator, Amitabh Kant, said last week that the “world needs to move on” from the Ukraine war and focus on wider issues such as global poverty, demanding: “Can that one war bring the entire world to a standstill?”