My Take | In Ukraine, it is the US and the EU who are the real bosses
- What started as an invasion by Russia has turned into a proxy war by the West, with major decisions taken out of Ukrainian hands
Now we know who calls the shots in Ukraine. No sooner did China propose a 12-point peace plan, it was shot down like the alleged spy balloon. The Americans and Germans said most of the points made were pointless. This was despite the Western powers having criticised Beijing for not lifting a finger on the peace front in the past year. Well, neither did India but you don’t hear the same loud complaints against a potential security partner in Asia.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Beijing should have ended it after the first point, which called for “respecting the sovereignty of all countries”. That’s funny, considering it was coming from a country that has invaded, interfered with and/or carried out military operations in practically every nation and political territory on Earth in the past two centuries.
Still, what Uncle Sam says goes. And what Germany says carries weight in the European Union. Since Washington, Berlin and Nato have said no, it’s immaterial what Emmanuel Macron and Volodymyr Zelensky think. Both leaders have in fact offered Beijing the benefit of the doubt and are willing to accept it as a potential mediator. It’s worth considering the Ukrainians in their own words. It should also be remembered that China had excellent relations with both Ukraine and Russia before the war.
Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires in Beijing called the peace plan a “good sign”. “We hope they also urge Russia to stop the war and withdraw its troops,” he added.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who met foreign affairs chief Wang Yi at the Munich Security Conference last week, said Kyiv intended to “carefully study it and draw conclusions”.