(National Review) For a long while now, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has made oddly optimistic comments about China playing some sort of useful role in bringing the Russian invasion of Ukraine to an end.
For much of the war, the Chinese government has combined bland calls for peace with criticism of NATO supplying Ukraine with weapons, declaring, “the continued supply of heavy weapons to one side of the war is not conducive to the end of the war as soon as possible, it is adding fuel to the fire.” (Indeed, a rapid Russian conquest of Ukraine would end the war quickly, but it’s hard to blame the Ukrainians or the West for attempting to avert that outcome.)
But if this report in the Financial Times is accurate, we have the first clear sign of Beijing actually playing a useful role in the conflict.
Xi Jinping personally warned Vladimir Putin against using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, indicating Beijing harbours concerns about Russia’s war even as it offers tacit backing to Moscow, according to western and Chinese officials.
The face-to-face message was delivered during the Chinese president’s state visit to Moscow in March, the people added, one of Xi’s first trips outside China after years of isolation under his zero-Covid policy.
Since then, Chinese officials have privately taken credit for convincing the Russian president to back down from his veiled threats of using a nuclear weapon against Ukraine, the people said.
It is unlikely that Xi’s words by themselves deterred Putin from using a nuclear weapon, but it is helpful that a leader who pledged a “no-limits partnership” with Russia shortly before the war sent a clear signal that if Putin used nuclear weapons, China would not have his back.
Elsewhere, the International Atomic Energy Agency offers some tentative good news about the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts present at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) have in recent days and weeks inspected parts of the facility – including some sections of the perimeter of the large cooling pond – and have also conducted regular walkdowns across the site, so far without observing any visible indications of mines or explosives, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said today.
The IAEA experts have requested additional access that is necessary to confirm the absence of mines or explosives at the site, Director General Grossi said. In particular, access to the rooftops of reactor units 3 and 4 is essential, as well as access to parts of the turbine halls and some parts of the cooling system at the plant, he added.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces contended yesterday:
