“The only thing that can be said for sure about the meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in South Korea on October 30 is that the topic of Ukraine will be discussed in a very broad political and economic context. The reduction or termination of China’s purchases of Russian oil will be discussed. Already now, large Chinese companies have begun to refuse to purchase oil from Lukoil and Rosneft after the US sanctions – about”, — write on: ua.news
The only thing that can be said for sure about the meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in South Korea on October 30 is that the topic of Ukraine will be discussed in a very broad political and economic context.
The reduction or termination of China’s purchases of Russian oil will be discussed. Already, large Chinese companies have begun to refuse to purchase oil from Lukoil and Rosneft after the US sanctions – just in case. We are talking about those companies that are actively working in Western markets.
But I do not think that China will make direct concessions to Trump. Won’t go. These are the two most influential states, the most influential leaders. They have their own ambitions, their own positions, and making concessions to others means weakness. They won’t do that.
The main topic of the meeting is not Ukraine, but trade and economic issues… Trump will persuade Xi Jinping to put pressure on Putin: he will not pressure Xi. This is not the situation and their relationship is not like that. Trump will say that now is the time to convince Putin to end this war. It will be said that this is also in the interests of China. And this should be part of a broad political and economic agreement between China and the United States.
But this is a very idealistic approach. At the moment, China is not interested in influencing Putin to end the war. At the same time, Beijing is not directly interested in the continuation of the war either – but it does not see a direct interest in influencing the quick end of the war. China benefits from a weakened Russia, but direct agreements between Trump and Putin are not beneficial. Therefore, China will not contribute to the end of the war so that Putin and Trump come to an agreement.
Unfortunately, China has no direct interest in this issue. But there is no interest in escalation. Therefore, the position of China today is very controversial. This war weakens both Russia and the West. And this is in Chinese interests. Therefore, we should not expect any breakthrough solutions from the negotiations between Trump and Xi – this is not the case, and we need to be realistic here.
Volodymyr Fesenko