Chinese president Xi Jinping will send a delegation to Ukraine to hold talks with all parties on resolving the conflict there, following his first phone call with Ukrainian counterpart Volodmyr Zelenskiy e since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
According to Chinese state media Xi made the offer during a telephone call on Wednesday with Zelenskiy and offered to help facilitate peace talks aimed at achieving a ceasefire as soon as possible.
Xi also appeared to pledge China would remain neutral in the conflict saying Beijing “will neither watch the fire from the other side, nor add fuel to the fire, let alone take advantage of the crisis to profit”.
The Chinese leader’s comments come despite the fact that China remains Russia’s top strategic ally in the midst of the conflict. Despite scepticism in Ukraine about China’s overtures for negotiations, Kyiv has been keen to keep communications open with Beijing not least after Xi’s recent high profile summit in Moscow where Russia and China pledged “undying friendship”.
Describing the contact, Zelenskiy said: “I had a long and meaningful phone call with President Xi Jinping.
“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.
Zelensky’s spokesman, Sergiy Nykyforov, said on Facebook that the two had “an almost one hour long conversation”.
Commenting on the call, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that it noted China’s willingness to engage in a peace process for Ukraine.
“We note the readiness of the Chinese side to make efforts to establish a negotiation process,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
On the Chinese side the call was confirmed by Hua Chunying, spokeswoman of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on her Twitter page.
“What China has done to help resolve the Ukraine crisis has been above board”, added Yu Jun, deputy head of the foreign ministry’s Eurasian department.
Providing further details of the contacts a report on Chinese state TV said Xi had told the Ukrainian leader: “Negotiation is the only viable way out,” adding: “There is no winner in a nuclear war.”
According to CCTV, Xi said China “will neither watch the fire from the other side, nor add fuel to the fire, let alone take advantage of the crisis to profit”.
“When dealing with the nuclear issue, all parties concerned should remain calm and restrained, truly focus on the future and destiny of themselves and all mankind, and jointly manage and control the crisis,” Xi said.
There have been signs that China is unhappy about how Russia’s invasion has played out, with Putin himself saying last September that Xi had “questions and concerns” about the war.
But China is under increasing pressure from western governments, which have dubbed it a “systemic rival”. And no other allies have the geopolitical and military clout of Russia, even now it stands somewhat diminished by military failures in Ukraine and the financial sanctions prompted by the invasion.
According to a Chinese official Beijing plans to send a delegation to Ukraine and other countries with the aim of starting peace negotiations.
The phone call follows the release of a Chinese- proposed 12-point peace plan and repeated requests from Zelenskiy for a meeting with Xi both before and after the Chinese leader visited Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in Moscow last month.
That document portrayed China as a neutral party and urged the two sides to enter into peace negotiations.
The paper’s first point was that “the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all countries must be effectively upheld”.
But China has consistently refused to expand upon how that relates to the specifics of the Ukraine war, which was triggered when Moscow’s forces invaded their neighbour.
In the paper, Beijing called on Russia and Ukraine to resume peace talks, stating that “dialogue and negotiation are the only viable solution”.
The document was met by scepticism from Ukraine’s allies, with Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, saying Beijing “doesn’t have much credibility because they have not been able to condemn the illegal invasion of Ukraine”.
Many at the time pointed to the fact Xi had met with Putin but not even called Zelenskiy as evidence that China was not the impartial observer it claimed to be.
Just before Putin ordered troops across the border, China described their partnership as a “no limits” alliance. Repeated meetings between the two leaders since then, including a state visit by Xi to Moscow, have left no doubt about where Beijing believes its main interests lie.

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform.