China's readiness to participate in talks on Ukraine is balancing between Russia and West – Ukraine’s diplomat Ohryzko

He expressed this opinion on the Espreso TV channel

"In the near future, China will be the biggest challenge for the West. In other words, the main threat. Beijing cannot but understand this. Therefore, China will now try to balance between its ideological ally Russia and the economically important West. They do this all the time," explained Ohryzko.

The diplomat stressed that China's 12-point ‘peace plan’ does not provide for practical steps to end the war.

"I would say the sme about the arrival of a Chinese representative to Saudi Arabia to discuss the Ukrainian Peace Formula. We have long talked about China's 12 peace points. There is nothing new in them. This is not a specific plan of action, but actually a list of points rewritten from the UN Charter. However, if China really wants to demonstrate that they are changing their position on the war, they need to officially declare that the main precondition for ending the war is the withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of Ukraine. Everything else can be discussed after that. There is no such statement. Therefore, to talk about a change in China's position is wishful thinking," he added.

The EU has received China’s signals that it is ready to participate in the negotiations

Earlier, the Financial Times reported that China has signaled its willingness to participate in further international negotiations to resolve the war in Ukraine, according to European officials who welcomed its "constructive" participation in a forum in Saudi Arabia, which was not attended by Moscow.

They noted that the Jeddah talks, which were attended by dozens of countries and focused on a 10-point peace plan proposed by Kyiv, ended on Sunday without concrete results. However, the presence of Beijing, which had refused to participate in similar talks in Copenhagen a week earlier, was seen as a victory for Kyiv and was a major event among the participants.

The publication recalls that China announced an "unlimited" partnership with Russia before Moscow's full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022, which Beijing did not condemn, and its peace plan, unveiled earlier this year, coincided with the Kremlin's ideas.

One European diplomat said that China "looks constructive" and "seeks to show that [it] is not Russia".

"The very presence of China shows that Russia is becoming more and more isolated," he said, adding that China has made it clear that it will attend the next such meeting.

Another European official said that China "actively participated and was positive about the idea of a third meeting at this level".

President Xi Jinping visited Russian President Putin in March in one of his first official visits since the lifting of China's three-year anti-covid regime. However, Beijing remains cautious about the trajectory of relations between the two countries. In particular, the newspaper adds that last month the FT reported that Xi warned Putin against using nuclear weapons.

The forum, which was held at the level of national security advisers, was attended by dozens of countries including: Brazil, Turkey, South Africa and the United States, as well as the EU.

Western nations and Ukraine hoped that the meeting would help isolate Russia and gain support for Ukraine among developing countries that had not yet declared their position on the invasion. Some see the war as a "conflict between US-led NATO and Moscow".