HONG KONG, July 15. /TASS/. Beijing has been trying to persuade EU countries to accept a China-Brazil plan to settle the conflict in Ukraine that would take into account Russia's security concerns, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) newspaper reported citing European officials.
According to the newspaper sources, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz were confident that China would send representatives to the conference on Ukraine in Switzerland. However, the Chinese side refrained from attending the meeting and shortly before the conference addressed the EU embassies with a proposal to consider an alternative conflict resolution plan prepared jointly with Brazil. According to this initiative, the organizers of the conference in Switzerland should have given Russia a seat at the negotiating table and held an "honest discussion" of all proposals to resolve the conflict. The Sino-Brazilian plan also took into account Russia's security concerns, the newspaper pointed out.
According to the SCMP, the EU was shocked by the outcome of the March meeting with the Chinese government's special representative for Eurasian affairs, Li Hui, who had visited Russia shortly before that. According to the newspaper's source, the Chinese diplomat informed his European colleagues about Moscow's confidence in Kiev's inevitable defeat and recommended that they reconsider their assessment of the situation in Ukraine.
On May 23, following a meeting between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and special advisor to the president of Brazil Celso Amorim, the two sides issued a joint statement saying that the only way to resolve the conflict in Ukraine is dialogue and negotiations. China and Brazil proposed holding an international conference "at an appropriate time" "with equal participation of all parties and discussion of all peace plans."
The conference on Ukraine was held June 15-16 in Switzerland's Burgenstock at the initiative of the Ukrainian side. The final communique of the forum was not signed by Armenia, Bahrain, Brazil, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Mexico, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and the Vatican. Russia was not invited to Burgenstock. Delegations of most UN members were also absent. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the conference was a complete fiasco and that such gatherings cannot serve as a basis for sustainable peace.