Ukraine war: China peace envoy told again that Beijing must push Moscow to end invasion
- Li Hui, who leads China’s peacemaking effort, is told in Brussels that the EU expects China to press Russia to ‘immediately and unconditionally’ withdraw from Ukraine
- Li has faced a consistent message during his extended tour through Europe, which started last week in Kyiv with a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
A top European Union official has used a high-profile meeting with a Chinese envoy in Brussels to press Beijing again to use its leverage with Russia to end the war in Ukraine.
Li Hui, Beijing’s special envoy for Eurasian affairs, who is leading China’s peacemaking effort, met Enrique Mora, the EU’s deputy secretary general for political affairs, on Thursday.
After the meeting, the EU said that Mora had stressed “the necessity to respect” Ukraine’s sovereignty.
“The EU expects China … to play a constructive role and to use every occasion to uphold and promote the UN Charter and international law, and to recall the necessity to respect the principles of sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity,” the EU statement said.
02:46
Russian prime minister travels to China to ‘elevate cooperation’
That expectation includes efforts by Beijing to get Russia “to stop the bloodshed and indiscriminate targeting of civilians by immediately and unconditionally withdrawing all forces and military equipment from the entire territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders”.
The statement did not include any details of Li’s response and Beijing did not immediately release its own readout of the meeting.
