Why China’s role as a peacemaker in Ukraine may be limited
- Beijing has claimed a mediation success with an agreement between Tehran and Riyadh
- But China has a lot of reason to be cautious about leading from the front in interventions elsewhere, analysts say
Yun Sun, director of the China programme at the Washington-based Stimson Centre, said China had become more active in conflict mediation in recent years, but the Saudi Arabia-Iran deal was the only one that had borne fruit.
“Saudi Arabia and Iran had wanted to improve their relations and had been talking for some time,” she said. “China was at the right place at the right time with the right relations.”
03:11
China, Iran pledge to deepen cooperation as both grapple with strained US ties
China hosted a multilateral dialogue on Afghanistan last year that featured the participation of both the United States and Russia – a rare occasion for the three world powers to come together. It also offered to broker peace in the Horn of Africa when it hosted a peace conference last year, although no specific conflict was discussed, and was recently asked by Myanmar’s ethnic armed groups to mediate a ceasefire following the 2021 coup.