China’s president Xi Jinping held a phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, the first conversation between the leaders since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Zelenskyy described the almost hour-long call as “long and meaningful”. He has for some time wanted direct talks with Xi to seek China’s help in ending the war, which follows Moscow’s invasion in February 2022.
“I believe that this call, as well as the appointment of Ukraine’s ambassador to China, will give a powerful impetus to the development of our bilateral relations,” Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter.
The Ukrainian president’s press secretary, Serhiy Nykyforov, told the Financial Times that the call lasted “almost an hour”.
Xi told Zelenskyy he would send a special government representative for Eurasia to visit Ukraine and other countries, to seek a “political resolution of the Ukraine crisis and conduct deep dialogue with all parties”, according to Chinese state media.
Zelenskyy said previously that he had extended an invitation to Xi to visit the Ukrainian capital.
“China is not a maker of the Ukraine crisis, nor is it a party to it,” Xi said. The Chinese government does not describe the conflict as a war or invasion.
Xi added: “The mutual respect of sovereignty and territorial integrity is the political foundation of China-Ukraine relations.”
Last weekend, China’s ambassador to France caused uproar among European officials when he said that post-Soviet states had no legal standing in international law.
He added that the question of whether Crimea belonged to Ukraine was “not simple to answer”. Russia illegally annexed the peninsula in 2014. Beijing later backtracked on the comments.
China has presented a 12-point proposal to end the Ukraine conflict that appears to greatly favour Moscow. It calls for the warring sides to resume peace talks and respect national sovereignty. Conspicuously absent from the proposal, however, is any mention of Russia withdrawing its troops from Ukrainian territory, a key demand of Kyiv and its western backers before any negotiations with Moscow can begin.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken told a Senate committee on Capitol Hill in March that any ceasefire without the withdrawal of Russian troops “would effectively be supporting the ratification of Russian conquest”.
Xi discussed the plan with Russian president Vladimir Putin last month during a state visit to Moscow.
Zelenskyy said in February that China’s plan was not a “peace plan”.
“I believe only a state on whose territory the war is taking place can do that,” he said at the time, adding that Ukraine had its own 10-point plan to end the conflict. “I want to believe that China is going to side with the idea of peace and fairness, which is our side.”
Xi said to Zelenskyy on Wednesday, according to Chinese state media: “We hope all parties deeply reflect on the Ukraine crisis, and through dialogue, together seek the path of long-term stability and peace for Europe.”
A senior EU official said China wanted “to be regarded as a player and not discarded as being on Russia’s side”. “They want to be back in the game and be seen as a party in the [peace] project,” the official said.
John Kirby, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, said the US had not known of the call in advance.
But he said it was a “good thing” that Xi and Zelenskyy had spoken, since Washington had been pressing the Chinese for a call and for Beijing to hear the “Ukrainian perspective” on the conflict.
Kirby cautioned, however, that it could not currently be known whether the contact might help pave the way for peace talks. “If there’s going to be a negotiated peace it has got to be when President Zelenskyy is ready for it,” Kirby said.
Additional reporting by James Politi in Washington and Henry Foy in Brussels