BANGKOK (AP) — China called on Tuesday for more countries to endorse its peace plan for Ukraine, after a round of diplomacy with Indonesia, Brazil and South Africa to support its plan.
Envoy Li Hui called the three countries representative of the Global South and “important forces in promoting world peace” who share similar positions with China. “They have maintained communication with both Russia and Ukraine and stay committed to a political settlement to the crisis through dialogue and negotiation,” said Li, China’s special envoy for Eurasian affairs.
China and Brazil issued a joint peace plan earlier this year that calls for a peace conference with both Ukraine and Russia and no expansion of the battlefield. China and Russia were absent from a peace summit hosted in Switzerland in June. Russia was not invited while China chose not to attend.
Initially, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said China had pressured other countries to not attend the peace summit. But since then, Ukraine has recognized China’s role in a peace process, given its close relationship with Russia, with the Ukrainian foreign minister paying a visit to the country in July, the first since the war began.