Chinese diplomat Wang Yi, French President Emmanuel Macron discuss Ukraine war during meeting in Paris
China's top diplomat, Wang Yi, began a whistle-stop tour designed to bolster strained ties with Europe on Wednesday, meeting French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris.
Wang also met with Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, ahead of an expected trip by Macron to Beijing in April.
It marks Wang's first trip to Europe since taking the top foreign ministry job last year and comes with EU-China relations reeling from a series of blows.
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Wang - a former long-term foreign minister who was promoted to Beijing's 24-member Politburo last year - will also visit EU member states Italy, Germany and Hungary, with the final stop expected to be Moscow, on the cusp of the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
According to a Chinese government readout of the meeting carried by state media Xinhua, Wang and Macron exchanged "in-depth views about the Ukraine issue". Wang told the French president that China "adheres to an objective and impartial stance on the issue and is committed to promoting peace talks", according to the report.
Multiple European diplomats and officials said the itinerary suggested that while China may be keen to patch things up with the bloc, it has no intention of abandoning Russia.
The Sino-Russian relationship has cast a dark cloud over EU-China affairs since the invasion last February. Having initially failed to persuade China to condemn the attack, European leaders say Beijing has declined to use its influence with Moscow to bring the war to an end.
There is satisfaction in Brussels that Beijing is not extensively contravening sweeping sanctions that block Russia out of Western markets, even as it is buying up cheap Russian commodities.
However, when faced with Chinese claims of neutrality in the conflict, EU officials point to the fact that they have repeatedly asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to speak with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, requests that have fallen on deaf ears.
They also note the frequency with which Chinese government representatives repeat Russian leader Vladimir Putin's talking points, in particular blaming Western powers, most commonly the United States and Nato, for fanning the conflict.
In interviews, meanwhile, Chinese diplomats have become tetchy at having to account for their cosy ties with Russia. Sources said the same behaviour has been noticed at official EU-China engagements, with European officials raising the war as a priority in every meeting since the invasion.
EU officials pressed the Ukraine issue again on Monday when China's special envoy for Europe, Wu Hongbo, came to Brussels.
Wang is set to lay out Beijing's position on the war at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, a forum that has been critical of China's failure to use its influence with Russia to end the war.
Wang will meet the EU's top diplomat Josep Borrell on the sidelines of the Munich summit. They are expected to discuss a trip to China in the spring that Borrell is planning.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is also considering a meeting with Wang in Munich, according to news reports.
In Rome, he will meet with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a right-wing firebrand who took office in October and whose pro-Ukraine stance has surprised some in Europe.
Lu Shaye, Beijing's ambassador to France, told the state-run tabloid Global Times this week that China's ties with Moscow had made EU relations "a bit difficult".
"Both Russia and the EU are important forces on the international stage, and both are important partners of China. For us, China-Russia relations and China-EU relations can go hand in hand, and this is also the right that a sovereign state has to decide," Lu said.
His counterpart in Brussels, Fu Cong, has repeatedly defended China's proximity to Russia and its position on the war. At an event in the city last week, Fu criticised those calling for a total victory for Ukraine.
"Frankly speaking, we are quite concerned about the possible escalation of this conflict. And we don't believe that providing weapons will actually solve the problem. We are quite concerned about people talking about winning a complete victory on the battlefield," Fu said.
"We believe that the right place should be at the negotiating table. So we called for a peace negotiation as quickly as possible, in order to put a stop to the fighting, so that the territorial integrity and security concerns of all sides will be taken care of," he added.
Amid the tension, the steady drumbeat of EU-China diplomacy will continue.
Macron will travel to Beijing in April at Xi's invitation, following German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Council President Charles Michel's visits last year.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is also expected to take her first ministerial trip to China in the coming months.
On Friday, officials from China's Department of International Organisation and Conferences will sit down in the Belgian capital with EU officials for the 38th bilateral dialogue on human rights.
Additional reporting by Orange Wang
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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