Drop calls for ‘total victory’ for Ukraine – POLITICO

Beijing’s top envoy to the EU on Wednesday questioned the West’s call to help Ukraine achieve a “complete victory” on the eve of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s possible arrival in Brussels.

Fu Cong, China’s ambassador to the EU, also slammed the bloc for ‘eroding’ its commitment to Taiwan, warning ‘senior officials from EU institutions’ to stop visiting the island. autonomous.

Fu’s provocative comments on Ukraine and Taiwan, two of the most sensitive geopolitical controversies between China and the West, come as Chinese President Xi Jinping plans a trip to Moscow, according to the Russian government.

Insisting that the Russian-Ukrainian “conflict” was just an “inevitable” talking point, Fu said Beijing otherwise enjoyed a multi-faceted “traditional friendship” with Moscow.

“Frankly, we are very concerned about the possible escalation of this conflict,” Fu said at an event organized by the European Policy Center in Brussels. “And we don’t think just providing weapons will actually solve the problem.”

“We are very concerned about people talking about achieving complete battlefield victory. We believe the right place would be at the negotiating table,” Fu added.

His remarks come on the same day Zelenskyy travels to London, his first trip to Western Europe since Russia launched its full-scale invasion nearly a year ago. POLITICO reported that Zelenskyy – who his aides say has never had his calls picked up by Xi, while the Chinese leader has instead met or called Putin several times over the past year – was also planning a visit to Brussels on Thursday, before missed EU communications cast doubt on the trip.

The idea of ​​a “complete victory” for Ukraine was supported with the greatest voice by the Baltic and Eastern European countries. French President Emmanuel Macron has promised to support “victoryfor Ukraine.

But toeing Xi’s line, Fu said the “security concerns of both sides” – Ukraine as well as Russia – must be taken into account.

Fu also dismissed comparisons between Ukraine and Taiwan, which both face military threats from a nuclear-armed neighbor.

“I must say at the outset that [the] The Ukrainian crisis and the Taiwan question are two completely different things. Ukraine is an independent state and Taiwan is part of China,” he said. “So there is no comparability between the two issues.”

He then criticized the way the EU is handling the Taiwan issue.

“Today, what we see is that there is some erosion of these basic commitments. We see that parliamentarians as well as senior officials from EU institutions are also visiting Taiwan,” he said.

The European Commission has not made public any details of its officials’ visit to Taiwan. The European External Action Service, the EU’s diplomatic arm, did not respond to a request for comment.

If the EU signed an investment treaty with Taiwan, Fu said it would “fundamentally change…or shake the foundations” of EU-China relations. “It’s so serious.”