China’s special representative for Eurasian affairs and former ambassador to Russia, Li Hui, begins a tour of Ukraine, Russia, and other European cities on Monday on a trip Beijing says is aimed at discussing a “political settlement” of the Ukrainian crisis. Li Hui is also scheduled to visit Poland, France, and Germany as part of the multi-day tour, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Friday, without providing a detailed timetable. “This visit is a testament to China’s efforts to promote peace talks and fully demonstrates China’s firm commitment to peace,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a daily news conference. Li Hui, who speaks fluent Russian, is the highest-ranking Chinese official to visit Ukraine since Russia invaded it in February 2022, and his trip could coincide with the start of a long-awaited Ukrainian counter-offensive to retake the territory occupied by Russia.

The visit comes weeks after Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by phone with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, in late April, the first talks between the two leaders since the start of the war. Zelenski described the talks as “long and meaningful” in a tweet, while Xi said Beijing would focus on promoting peace, although China’s proposals to end the conflict have drawn some skepticism in the West, considering the ties of this country with Russia. However, several European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi to hold talks with Zelenskiy and play a stronger role in deterring Moscow during a series of visits to the Chinese capital starting in March. Since February, Beijing has been heavily promoting a 12-point initiative for a political solution to the Ukrainian crisis. But this plan, released a year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — on February 24, 2022 — is largely a reiteration of China’s previous lines on the war in Ukraine. Beijing urged both sides to accept a gradual detente and warned against the use of nuclear weapons. Kiev ruled out the idea of any territorial concessions to Russia and declared that it wants to recover every centimeter of the territory previously occupied by Russia. Russia illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014, and since last September it has proclaimed that it has annexed four other Ukrainian regions (Donetsk, Lugansk – in the east, Kherson and Zaporozhye – in the south), which Moscow now calls “Russian land”. Since the beginning of the war, China has refrained from condemning Moscow, its strategic ally, or describing its actions in Ukraine as an “invasion”, drawing criticism from Western countries and the US, which have questioned China’s credibility as a potential mediator in the conflict. Whatever Li’s message is, it will be scrutinized given the unease in the West over the March meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his “dear friend”, his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, and the two countries’ commitment to a partnership “without limits” three months before the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a “special military operation”. Li has spent his entire diplomatic career dealing with the Soviet Union, then Russia and the states that emerged after its breakup, since joining the Department of Soviet and East European Affairs of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in 1975, according to Russian media.

By Paul Bumman