Russia Ukraine conflict: Why Volodymyr Zelensky wants to talk to Xi Jinping

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and Chinese President Xi Jinping. (Illustration by Suneesh K.)

If any proof were needed that the war with Russia is not going well for Ukraine, one has to only read President Volodymyr Zelensky’s interview published last Thursday in the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post (SCMP). This is his first interview with an Asian media outlet since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

Zelensky told the SCMP that he would like to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping and request him to use China’s influence over Russia to end the war. China, like India, has refused to censure the invasion. In fact, any analysis of the statements made by Chinese officials, Xi downwards, indicates that Beijing is in Moscow’s corner.

“(China is) a very powerful state,” Zelensky explained. “It’s a powerful economy… So (it) can politically, economically influence Russia. And China is (also a) permanent member of the UN Security Council… I would like to talk directly (to Xi).”

However, in the course of the conversation, Zelensky also admitted that he has been trying to speak with Xi since the war began but has received no response from Beijing: “Since the beginning of the large-scale aggression on February 24, we have asked officially for a conversation, but we (haven’t had) any conversation with China.”

The Ukrainian president wants China to pressure Russia economically. “I’m confident, I’m sure that without the Chinese market for the Russian Federation, Russia would be feeling complete economic isolation,” he said. “That’s something that China can do—to limit the trade (with Russia) until the war is over.”

Does he really believe this could happen?

Trade between China and Russia totalled $65.81 billion in the first five months of this year, up 28.9 percent from a year ago, according to China customs data. Most of the growth came from increased Chinese imports from Russia.

Between March and May, China bought three times the Russian oil it had imported in the same period last year. Beijing's purchases of Russian liquefied natural gas have surged 54 percent from a year ago. And these numbers are rising every month. With the price discounts it is offering, Russia has overtaken Saudi Arabia as China’s largest fuel supplier.

Moscow and Beijing have recently unveiled the first road bridge linking the two countries, connecting the far eastern Russian city of Blagoveshchensk with the northern Chinese city of Heihe.

In early June, speaking via video at the plenary session of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum’s annual meet, which is sometimes referred to as the Russian Davos, Xi emphasized China’s commitment to trading with Russia, despite Western sanctions against Moscow. “Today our cooperation between Russia and China (is) rising,” Xi said. “Trade over the first half of this year has been (in the tens of billions of US dollars) and we can expect new records in upcoming months, which is a testament to the great cooperation between our two nations.”

Over the last decade, China and Russia have developed close bonds as part of an envisaged geopolitical bloc to rival the US-led West. Nothing that has happened since February could possibly have weakened those ties. Days before the invasion, Xi met Vladimir Putin in Beijing where the two countries declared a bilateral relationship of “no limits”.

The two have spoken with each other at least twice since the war began. The first conversation was in fact less than 24 hours after Russian forces crossed into Ukraine, and the Russian embassy in Beijing said that Xi had expressed his “respect” for Putin's decision to attack its neighbour. They spoke again in June, and the Kremlin said that the Chinese leader endorsed “the legitimacy of Russia's actions to protect fundamental national interests”.

Does Zelensky really mean what he told the SCMP—or is it another of the dozens of appeals he has made over the last six months that he must have known would be ignored, even in the West? Or is he clutching at straws?

Perhaps the latter. In the interview, he said that he believed China and Ukraine share similar values, such as the love for family and children. “Everyone loves their kids. Everyone wants to live in peace, wishes to have some stability.” So, I am sure, do the Tibetans, the Taiwanese, the Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang province and the people of Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh.

However, the Ukrainian leader also repeated his warnings about the war’s long-term implications on global food and energy security, this time in the context of China. Chinese exports could be negatively affected by countries spending more now on food, fuel and defence, Zelensky said. “The people would have to pay for energy resources rather than for products coming from China… Exports from China would be decreasing. That’s 100 per cent.”

Meanwhile, the human tragedy continues at a massive scale. More than six million Ukrainians—about 15 percent of the population—mainly women, children and elderly people, have fled the country since the invasion began, most of them making their way to border countries such as Romania, Moldova and Poland.

A recent report by the charity World Vision says that local resentment against the refugees is growing. “Messaging that could stoke anti-refugee tensions is being spread across central and eastern Europe,” the report said. “Children may face risks such as verbal and physical abuse between refugee and host communities, human trafficking and more as early as February 2023.”

The messaging campaigns include exaggerated figures about how much the refugees are costing the citizens, that many of the new arrivals are anti-socials and criminals, and even wild accusations that local children are being discharged early from hospitals to accommodate Ukrainians. Much of Europe could be sitting on a powder keg.

This war cannot have a happy ending. Already, Ukraine may be in a state where it will take decades to build back its infrastructure and economy to pre-war levels. And as long as the conflict goes on, vast numbers of people across the world will have to endure economic, food and energy hardships. But as things stand, a negotiated peace seems like a distant dream.