The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky, has celebrated the phone call he received from the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping: “It has been a long and quite rational conversation. Now there is an opportunity to give new impetus to the relations between Ukraine and China”, commented the Ukrainian, who added: “It is an opportunity to use the influence of China and focus on the principles on which peace must be based”. China wants to rise as the main mediator to try to achieve peace in Ukraine: “Dialogue and negotiation are the only viable way forward,” said Chinese Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Mao Ning.

He Kremlin has also welcomed the Chinese effort to end the conflict. The conversation between Xi Jinping and Zelensky occurs a month after the face-to-face meeting held on Chinese President and Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Now, the United States sees the step that China has taken in the conflict as positive, something that Brussels and NATO also appreciate: “This is very good news, it is a first step,” said the High Representative for Foreign Affairs of the European Union. , Josep Borrell.

However, much of the content of the conversation between the Chinese and Ukrainian presidents is still unknown, so it is difficult to know if he will play a key role in starting a negotiation process. According to political scientist and defense analyst Guillermo Pulido, in statements to ‘Al Rojo Vivo’, “Zelenski and Xi Jinping have been talking for an hour. In addition, the content of the conversation is secret and there is probably much more to it than what has been revealed.” . In this possible dialogue to resolve the conflict, China intends to use its own peace plan, which the West has already accused of not being neutral for not condemning the Russian invasion. “The word war is not used, there is no condemnation. It is a forced conversation and it illustrates that China is not an honest mediator,” Pedro Rodríguez, a professor at the University of Comillas, has indicated in ‘Al Rojo Vivo’.

For this reason and for the expected Ukrainian counteroffensive, many experts do not see it as feasible that the negotiation process can prosper in the short term, but perhaps later. As commented in ‘Al Rojo Vivo’ by the director of ‘The Political Room’ Yago Rodríguez, “if it were seen that the war was really reaching a dead end, an opportunity for negotiation could indeed open up”. For now, China will send a peace envoy to Ukraine and other countries. A position that will be occupied by his former ambassador in Moscow.