Europe and China must talk about ways to end Ukraine war: ex-French envoy to Beijing
The two sides should discuss a collective security system in an effort to end the conflict, according to Maurice Gourdault-Montagne
SCMP
A former French diplomat has urged Europe and China to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine, describing the issue as “the major challenge” facing the two sides.
“It shouldn’t prevent us from having a stronger dialogue with China and finding out ways and means to cooperate as we did in the past, to find out shared interests and common ground to work together,” said Gourdault-Montagne, who also served as ambassador to Japan, Germany and Britain.
“The major challenge at the moment is to get rid of this question of Ukraine. We need peace in Ukraine.”
He added that a 12-point peace proposal Beijing put forward two years ago could provide some basis for talks, despite European perceptions that Beijing was siding with Moscow.
“We can’t do anything about [China’s relationship with Russia],” he said.
“The thing is, we must talk, we must not be stopped by condemnation and these kinds of things.
“How can we build up something? I am sure the dialogue has not yet been opened regarding what could be guarantees of security between this one part of the Eurasian continent and [China].”
It also said that the sovereignty of all countries should be respected, and called for nuclear power plants to be safeguarded.
The proposal prompted the first telephone conversation between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky since the start of the war, but was criticised for being vague and ambiguous as it did not offer any timeline or road map for the plan.
Gourdault-Montagne, who retired from diplomatic duties in 2019, said all stakeholders must discuss a collective security system to end the war.
“This is a time we must discuss as it was the case in the Cold War,” he said, noting that the era yielded a series of agreements on issues such as conventional forces, intercontinental ballistic missiles and anti-ballistic systems.
“All of this has totally disappeared … We are totally naked. We need all these systems to organise security in a collective manner.”
At present Russia and Ukraine have directly conflicting conditions for ending the war.
Moscow wants written guarantees that Nato will not expand eastward, specifically ruling out membership for Ukraine, Georgia and other former Soviet states, according to Reuters.
It has also called for the lifting of Western sanctions, a deal on frozen Russian assets and greater protections for Russian speakers in Ukraine.
But Ukraine insists it must be invited to join Nato, has called for greater military support from Western countries, and has signed 28 defence cooperation agreements with other countries and the European Union.
The deal with the EU includes agreements on “integrating Ukraine into the European defence ecosystem, and coordinating sanctions policy and post-war recovery efforts”, according to the defence ministry in Kyiv.
Gourdault-Montagne said the EU should abandon ideas that make it “unable to move” and talk to Russia, even if some within the bloc might perceive such a move as surrender.
“This is not a surrender. This is our neighbour. As General [Charles] De Gaulle was saying, you cannot build Europe against Russia.
“It is a long way to have a settlement of peace, exchange of prisoners, withdrawal of heavy weaponry, guarantees of security … These are different steps. But let’s start by stopping the war,” he said.
Xi discussed ways of ending the war during his meeting with US President Donald Trump in South Korea last month.
“We agree the sides are locked in fighting, and sometimes you have to let them fight – crazy – but [Xi] is going to help us, and we’re going to work together on Ukraine,” Trump said afterwards.
Days before the summit, Trump said Xi “can have a big influence on [Russian President Vladimir] Putin”. Zelensky has also called on Trump to pressure China to reduce support for Russia.
Despite Beijing’s attempts to act as a peacemaker, it has maintained and deepened its economic ties with Russia since the invasion of Ukraine.
The EU has imposed multiple rounds of sanctions on Chinese entities this year in a bid to cripple Russia’s war machine.
Beijing responded by saying that it “has never provided lethal weapons to any party to the conflict and exercises strict export control over dual-use articles”, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
In September, the ministry said it was not fair to ask China to use its influence to help end the war as it was “neither the one that created the Ukraine crisis nor a party to it”.
“Scapegoating China does not solve any issue. The root cause of the Ukraine crisis lies in regional security tensions that have built up over the years in Europe,” foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said.