picture alliance via Getty Images
- China's Xi Jinping met Germany's Olaf Scholz Tuesday.
- Xi said he wanted to try and bring peace to Ukraine.
- But analysts say China is secretly intensifying support for Russia.
China's leader, Xi Jinping, played the role of Ukraine's peacemaker during talks on Tuesday with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
At the meeting in Beijing, Xi presented his German counterpart with four principles for peace in Ukraine, according to Chinese state media.
Nations must focus on "the upholding of peace and stability and refrain from seeking selfish gains," Xi said, as well as "cool down the situation and not add fuel to the fire."
He added that they must establish conditions for restoring peace while reducing the war's impact on the world's economy.
The principles are vague and similar to a Ukraine peace plan proposed by China last year. At the time, the US said the plan worked mostly in Russia's favor.
But despite these public statements, analysts say Xi's claims to be a peacemaker are a charade, and in reality, China is increasing support for Russia's military.
Last month, London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) warned that Russia was increasing its cooperation with China in 5G and satellite technology.
And in recent weeks, US intelligence has claimed that China is increasing its equipment sales to Russia, as well as providing important technologies such as microelectronics, optics, machine tools, and missile propellants.
This is in addition to the diplomatic and economic support China has already given the Kremlin.
The Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank, on Tuesday, said that Xi was seeking to garner goodwill in Germany, a key trading partner for China but an ally of Ukraine.
"Xi's generally vague signaling to Scholz vis a vis Ukraine over the backdrop of reportedly intensifying Chinese support for Russia is, therefore more likely an attempt to maintain China's access to European markets by garnering goodwill with Germany than to show actual interest in facilitating an end to Russia's invasion of Ukraine," said its analysts.
Scholz is just the latest Western leader to try to persuade Xi to use his influence with Russia's President Vladimir Putin to end the Ukraine invasion.
But China showed no signs of changing its position, reiterating claims that the West was to blame for the war by arming Ukraine, The Associated Press reported.
China has been balancing conflicting priorities in Ukraine, experts previously told Business Insider. While Xi sees a Russian victory in the war as a way of damaging the global power of Ukraine's main backers, he's also keen to retain access to Western markets and US investment.
In recent years, the Chinese economy has experienced a serious downturn caused by a property market bubble, and Xi has abruptly changed his tone with many Western leaders, offering a series of concessions to US President Joe Biden at a meeting last year in San Francisco.
So far, that shift in tone has not resulted in a substantive change in his position on Putin's war in Ukraine despite the best efforts of Western leaders to get him to intervene.