Posted on 02/24/2023 7:49:31 PM PST by SeekAndFind
We’ve reached the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and an unexpected player has arrived on the field. Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve watched China and Russia move closer to formalizing an alliance, perhaps establishing a new military partnership that could shift the balance of power globally. There has also been talk of China providing Russia with lethal aid to use against Ukraine. But this morning, rather than a shipment of rockets or missiles, the Chinese Foreign Ministry delivered a peace plan proposing to end the war and return Europe to normalcy. And Ukraine expressed an interest in it immediately, with Zelensky saying that he would be interested in speaking to the Chinese. But what’s in this for China? (NY Post)
On the eve of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China has called for a cease-fire between the two sides and for peace talks to commence as part of a 12-point plan to end the war.
China’s Foreign Ministry revealed the plan on Friday, Beijing time, and also called for the end of Western sanctions on Russia, measures to ensure nuclear facilities, humanitarian corridors for civilians to flee the conflict and a process to ensure the continuation of grain exports.
“All parties should support Russia and Ukraine in working in the same direction and resuming direct dialogue as quickly as possible,” the paper released on China’s Foreign Ministry’s website stated.
Before we break this down, let’s look at the specific 12 points that China proposed.
While it didn’t appear on the list, China also condemned the use or even the threat of using nuclear weapons. The proposal said, “Nuclear weapons must not be used and nuclear wars must not be fought.”
At a quick glance, there’s really nothing outrageous or objectionable on the list. It’s actually quite generic in nature and could apply to any conflict anywhere around the globe. In fact, considering that it’s coming from a country that is currently in the midst of building an alliance with one of the nations involved in the war, it’s downright reasonable. The line about “respecting the sovereignty of all countries” is something of a shot across the bow at Russia, which I found rather surprising. Ideas about suspending the fighting, not damaging nuclear plants and resuming agricultural production and exports are all positive in nature.
But what makes China’s plan seem rather weak is the unspoken message that underlies it. This proposal definitely projects an air of, “let’s all go home and pretend that all of this unpleasantness never happened.” Can the world really just walk away at this point and forget what Russia did? At last count, more than 200,000 combatants have died, along with at least 8,000 Ukrainian civilians and assorted foreign fighters, including at least a couple of Americans. The country is in ruins and its infrastructure is almost completely collapsed.
That brings us to the things that are missing from the list. There is no mention of Russia paying reparations for all of the death and destruction that has unfolded over the past year. Perhaps that idea was vaguely included in “promoting post-conflict reconstruction,” but they aren’t really calling on Moscow to pick up the tab.
There is also no mention of what the borders would look like if the war suddenly came to an end. Ukraine has taken back some of the territory that it lost since 2014. Do they keep that? Would Russia have to give up all of Crimea? Or, conversely, would Ukraine have to pull back to the west and return to the borders as they existed prior to the invasion? That seems like one of the potentially deal-breaking questions.
It’s a rare day when I get to say anything nice about China given all of the problems they are causing in the current era. But I will at least give them credit for trying to help bring an end to this. It’s far better than simply announcing that they would be joining in with Russia to help wipe out Ukraine. We’ll have to wait to see the Russian response. They really need an alliance with China and Putin may feel some pressure to work out a deal.
Biden will claim he back channeled China to do this to end this in a peaceful manner
Well, a million soldiers from the PLA contributed to the effort should bring things to an end quickly.
They set the whole thing in motion in the 1st place, now they want credit for ending it. Sneaky bastions.
They’ll just send 200 million soldiers over...
/subtext
By default, anything China says is a good plan, you can safely bet it isn’t.
Well, a million soldiers from the PLA contributed to the effort should bring things to an end quickly.===
Russia will not need China soldiers. But better China supply 1 mln of attacking drones and the war will be over.
Brandon will do what his masters tell him.
Some questions after reading the 12 Point plan:
Regarding Item 3 (Resuming peace talks) is sort of bizarre as there have never been “peace talks” to resume. The abortive talks between Ukraine and Russia in Turkey went nowhere because there was no common ground for talks. That situation hasn’t changed. The fact that China doesn’t call for withdrawing Russian forces to the status quo ante as a precondition for talks shows it is not a serious proposal.
Item 10 (Stopping unilateral sanctions) is about clearing the deck for the Chinese sending lethal aid to Russia. Under current US and EU sanctions, Chinese companies who are found to provide Russia with lethal aid will be penalized.
The “long-arm jurisdiction” China refers to is the ability of the Department of Commerce to go to court to levy civil penalties on foreign companies that violate US sanctions. China doesn’t like that because they are a serial violator of sanctions, and without this ability, US sanctions would be useless.
In fct, I think we can expect to see China send lethal aid to Russia, and we can expect that some minor sanctions will be slapped on minor Chinese companies because, in all seriousness, I think Joe Biden is so compromised by his business dealings with China that he’s afraid to do much more than symbolism.
There was common ground in Istanbul. The Russian demands were to recognize the independence of Lugansk and Donetsk, to give up on NATO aspirations, and to recognize the right of minorities to use their languages in public life.
That wasn’t too much and Ukraine agreed until Johnson’s visit.
I don’t trust the ChiComs at all. But their plan sure beats Biden’s plan:
1. Borrow huge amounts of money. Send it all to Kiev.
2. Make a list of things that would greatly escalate the situation (blow up a pipeline, send Kiev our best tanks, etc.). Do all those things.
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until things totally spiral out of control.
Well, I wasn’t picking sides for them. Quantity is a quality all its own.
China installed ICBMs on their Jin-class subs last November.
Every media major media outlet, tonight, released their content of reporters assigned to the south China sea.
Check it out. Look at the news feed on YouTube.
The drums of War just started beating.
A significant concern for China is food supply. The loss of food to world consumption is putting pressure on China. Thay need to import enough grain to feed chicken and pigs so their people can eat some meat. Too little protein in the diet and there will be a very unhappy Chinese population. In addition these shortages are not making the third world happy and China gets to look like the good guy by promoting peaceful agriculture for both Ukraine and Russia. I predict China will make more moves to have both countries plant their wheat this spring and stop interfering with agriculture.
Amazingly, the UN just voted 141 to 7 to support Ukraine, which while not a move to action is a suprise to a number of international leaders who early today were afraid the legal majority would not vote for Ukraine. I think that 140 was the number needed for the resolution to succeed. I don’t think China voted against, or if they voted for or abstained. I suspect China may have influenced some of the favorable vote in the poorer countries.
China’s has ambitious long term military plans, as indicated by their moves to populate the South China sea with military bases even to the point of constructing new islands. In addition they are to the point of having more military ships than the US. The Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and other SE Asian countries are all concerned with Chinese interference with their ocean area spheres of influence. China may want Russia to quit throwing away arms and soldiers to no good effect. If Russia becomes too weak, they may no longer be able to help China in the case of warfare with SE Asian countries and the US.
China is going to run into serious long term manpower issues, directly cause by its woman power problems. With abortion and selective pregnancy, many more males than females have been born in past decades. I read that 1 half of young men may never find a wife given the selective abortion of female embreos. Who will produce the next generation of soldiers if Chinese family formation is cut in half. Of course, given Russia’s abortion rate of over 50 per 1000 women per year, Russia may not be such a great source of military backup unless it stops doing things that make Russian women unwilling to reproduce, and chases over a million of the smarter more mobile young men out of the country. What an F’ed up mess these dictators have made of their worlds.
This would make for a very compelling novel, wouldn’t it?
Unfortunately, it is real life.
China is indeed supplanting the United States as the world’s peacemaker and humanitarian power. This is the effect Barack Obama - with a 4 year pause and partial reversal - then back to full steam ahead under Biden, more than reversing the progress made under Trump.
Extraordinary. They have played the world like a fiddle, and a very weak US Administration just created an ever increasing void for them to fill.
Hope they do
On the one hand, China’s vast oversupply of young males makes for a huge supply of cannon fodder. They can make the Russians in Ukraine, or the Iranians in the Iran-Iraq war look like rank amateurs.
As for the next generation, they’ll still have far more people than they need*, but they could have a more reasonable male-female ratio of child bearing / rearing age if they worked on it.
*Except that they have to figure out how to support the old folks they’ll have too many of.
The Chinese plan also fails due to their long history of authoritarian governance: It makes them unable to understand the true situation.
While probably the majority of the Ukrainians were resigned to some sort of compromise with Russia, at least back when Zelenskyy was elected (he was, after all, the compromise / middle ground candidate), THAT has been turned on it’s head. Even the “Pro-Russia” candidate Yuriy Boyko (who came in 4th in the 1st round which narrowed the field to Zelenskyy and Poroshenko) now backs most of Zelenskyy’s current policies / position, reversing several of his (Boyko’s) earlier Pro-Russia stances. Just about whatever Ukrainians end up west of whatever territory is controlled by Russia, the “new” Ukraine that would exist, are seething with hatred toward Russia now. And what China and what would seem to be the majority of FReepers don’t “get” is that this is not a “top down” situation. If Zelenskyy makes such a deal he’ll be lucky to get that ride to the US out. More likely the Ukies will put his head on a pike. And even if some sort of gov’t emerges to survive to implement the agreement, they’ll be hated nearly as much as the Russians, which latter hatred is likely to last a long time. It’s just a totally unmanageable situation... :-(
I don’t see any solution to this animosity as long as Russia occupies any part of Ukraine (2013 borders). Yes, a de-militarized zone secured with a HEAVY UN troop presence could perhaps keep the border fairly calm, but how the hell do you govern the country without Soviet style repression? Which likely just exacerbates the hatred / disgust with the “traitor” government, as well as would kill support from the West.
No plan that does not include restoration of Ukraine to it’s 2013 borders, and ironclad security for those borders, can now work. The population, or at least a large portion of it, will not accept it.
I predict China will make more moves to have both countries plant their wheat this spring and stop interfering with agriculture.
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It is currently uneconomical for farmers in Ukraine to grow crops as the transportation costs are eat any profit, not to mention many areas can no longer be farmed due to the war and Russian occupation.
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