French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday said he would visit China in April, and urged Beijing to pressure Russia to end the war in Ukraine.
China has sought to position itself as a neutral party on the conflict, even as it has maintained close ties with Russia and helped scuttle a joint statement condemning the war at a G20 gathering in India.
It published a 12-point position paper on Friday that called for urgent peace talks and a “political settlement” to end the conflict.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday also expressed hopes to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), calling it “important for world security.”
Macron on Saturday said he would visit China in “early April” and urged Beijing to help “put pressure” on Russia to end the war.
“The fact that China is engaging in peace efforts is a good thing,” Macron said on the sidelines of an agricultural show in Paris, in reference to the position paper.
Peace was only possible if “Russian aggression was halted, troops withdrawn, and the territorial sovereignty of Ukraine and its people was respected,” he added.
Earlier on Saturday, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko would pay a state visit from tomorrow to Thursday at Xi’s invitation. A long-time ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Lukashenko allowed his country to be used as a launchpad for Moscow’s invasion of its pro-Western neighbor on Feb. 24 last year.
Kyiv has expressed concerns that Belarus could again support Moscow in its war effort, with the countries announcing the creation of a joint regional force in October last year.
Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Qin Gang (秦剛) told Belarusian Minister of Foreign Sergei Aleinik that Beijing was willing to work with Minsk to deepen mutual political trust during a telephone conversation on Friday, the Chinese ministry said in a statement.
China would also continue to support Belarus in maintaining national stability and oppose attempts by “external forces” to interfere in its internal affairs or impose “illegal” unilateral sanctions on Minsk, Qin told Aleinik.
The diplomatic rift between Beijing, Moscow and the West was exposed on Saturday as G20 finance ministers failed to adopt a joint statement on the global economy after China sought to water down references to the Ukraine war.
Russia said the US, the EU and the G7 “destabilized” the talks in India by trying to impose their “diktat.”
The Chinese position paper urged all parties to “support Russia and Ukraine in working in the same direction and resuming direct dialogue as quickly as possible.”
It also made clear its opposition to the use and threat of deploying nuclear weapons, after Putin threatened to use Moscow’s atomic arsenal in the conflict.
Some of Ukraine’s allies have expressed skepticism at China’s commitment to brokering peace, nodding to Beijing’s close ties to Moscow.
China has denied a claim by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that it was “considering providing lethal support” to Russia.
Macron urged China “not to supply any arms to Russia” and sought Beijing’s help to “exert pressure on Russia to ensure it never uses chemical or nuclear weapons and it stops this aggression prior to negotiations.”
Zelensky did not specify when or where talks with Xi would happen, but expressed hope on Friday that China would support a “just peace” in Ukraine and that Beijing would not supply weapons to Russia.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
RSS