Xi’s ‘pro-Russia’ envoy to EurasiaBy Sheng Yi-che 冼義哲The long-awaited telephone call between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy finally took place on Wednesday last week. Li was until 2019 the Chinese ambassador to Moscow, and has decades of experience serving in the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Soviet Union before its collapse. In 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin presented Li with the Order of Friendship at a ceremony in the Kremlin — that is enough to betray Li’s pro-Russia stance and ideology. What is Xi playing at, tasking a blatantly pro-Russia “wolf warrior” diplomat to bring Moscow and Kyiv to the negotiating table? Li’s visit as an ambassador serves no real purpose, as he is merely doing Xi’s bidding to buy Moscow time.

Source: Taipei Times May 05, 2023 03:43 UTC