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TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping called on world powers to help Russia and Ukraine resume direct dialogue during a meeting Monday with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Orbán made a surprise visit to China after similar trips last week to Russia and Ukraine to discuss prospects for a peaceful settlement of more than the two-year war. Hungary assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union this month and Orbán has since embarked on a peace mission, which, however, lacks the endorsement of other European leaders.

“China is a key power in creating the conditions for peace in the Russia-Ukraine war,” Orbán wrote on the social media platform X. “This is why I came to meet with President Xi in Beijing, just two months after his official visit to Budapest.��

Orbán is widely seen as having the warmest relations with Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin among European leaders. His visit to Moscow last week drew condemnation from Kyiv and EU officials, who insisted Orbán was not acting on behalf of the whole European bloc.

(Yahoo.com)

Did any other European leader praise China for its peace initiatives since the outbreak of the Ukraine war?

During his meeting with Xi, Orbán described China as a stabilizing force amid global turbulence and praised its “constructive and important” peace initiatives. I am wondering if any other leader in Europe has praised China for the same reason since the outbreak of the Ukraine war.

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    China "peace initiatives" are just generic statements. There was recently a "peace conference" in Switzerland where plenty of such statements were made... the crucial point for Europeans, which China refuses to mention, is the Russia's complete withdrawal from Ukraine.
    – Morisco
    Commented Jul 9 at 5:36
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    This is clearly a troll question: it implies that China is trying to get a real peace agreement, which is so far off. China is supporting Russia, which is the invader. That's internationally pretty well recognized. Nobody is hindering Russia to make peace by simply... withdrawing it's troops. China should not call on Ukraine to make peace but on Russia, but it rather supports the latter. Nope, the premise of this question is too flawed to take it seriously
    – Mayou36
    Commented Jul 10 at 4:11
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    @Mayou36 : " the premise of this question is too flawed to take it seriously": the premise of Russia leaving (especially from the Crimea) is also too flawed to take it seriously. From their point of view Crimea is historically theirs, Ukrainians there were never more than 15% of the population, and it belonged to Ukraine for a grand total of 23 years across all history. Withdrawing from Crimea is simply inconceivable from the Russian perspective.
    – vsz
    Commented Jul 10 at 4:31
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    @vsz That's a bit of a straw-man argument. Russia could still withdraw from the rest of occupied Ukraine and stop firing missiles at unoccupied areas. The Crimean issue doesn't prevent it from doing so. You're also conveniently sidestepping the fact that (a) Crimea belonged to the Ukranian SSR (the precursor to Ukraine) since 1954 with the USSR's agreement, and (b) Russia agreed in 1994 to respect Ukraine's sovereignty based on the borders at that time.
    – JBentley
    Commented Jul 10 at 10:26
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    Comments are not to debate the merits of the war in Ukraine. It seems a question that can be factually answered, whether you suspect the answer is "obviously not, Orban is a Putin stooge" or "obviously not, the rest of Europe are warmongers" or anything else.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Jul 23 at 12:36

5 Answers 5

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I interpret European leaders here to primarily mean EU leaders, for countries outside the EU see for example the answer by user182601.

The kind of peace agreements China envisons are fundamentally at odds with what European leaders want in a peace agreement. Therefore none of the EU leaders praised the Chinese proposals.

The gist of the Chinese proposals is that everyone stops fighting and the borders are frozen as they currently are. Which in practice means Russia gets to keep significant parts of Ukraine. This is nowhere close to what European leaders deem an acceptable outcome of the war. So they won't praise China for that. They also won't praise Russia if they made a similar proposal. As is common with negative statements, I can't give a source that shows the non-existence of such praise.

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    This answer explains why european have not generally praised China's "peace initatives", not whether any other leader has or not.
    – Ian Sudbery
    Commented Jul 9 at 14:14
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    "acceptable outcome of the war" is absolutely correct, but I feel like it's worth reiterating over and over that the reason for that is that history has taught us that it wouldn't result in (a lasting) peace and thus wouldn't be a (real) peace agreement. Russia previously invaded Georgia and Ukraine to steal land and they basically got away with it. The expectation is that if 'we' let Russia get away with it again, in another 10 years they will do another invasion.
    – David Mulder
    Commented Jul 9 at 14:51
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    This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. - From Review
    – William Walker III
    Commented Jul 10 at 11:48
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    @WilliamWalkerIII My answer says that no such praise exists and gives a reason why. This is a direct answer to the question: Did any leader praise? Answer: No. I edited a bit to make this more clear.
    – quarague
    Commented Jul 10 at 12:36
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    @Peter-ReinstateMonica- "There was no other invasion" - like, Korea 1945, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968? (Plus, your analogy implies that it was USSR who invaded Germany, which isn't quite how the Hitler-Stalin pact broke down.) I'm failing to see your analogy between 1945 and Russian Federation invasions that David talks about ([Chechnya,] Georgia, Ukraine).
    – Jirka Hanika
    Commented Jul 11 at 16:16
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Yes, Putin and Lukashenko are "European leader[s]" who have "praise[d] China for its peace initiatives".

Politico (2024-05-24):

"Putin backs China’s ‘plan’ for peace in Ukraine" ...

Putin praised his counterpart Xi Jinping's commitment to a "just multipolar world order," ...

"We are positive in our assessment of China's approach to solving the Ukrainian crisis," Putin said ...

Putin said China's contribution showed it understands the roots of the Ukraine crisis and its geopolitical impact and sincerely wants to achieve peace

BBC (2023-03-02):

Mr Lukashenko said his country "fully supports" a Beijing plan for ending the war in Ukraine. ...

The Belarus leader praised China's peace plan. ...

Mr Lukashenko said he "fully supports the initiative on international security you have put forward"

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    Cynical, but the only right answer.
    – Mayou36
    Commented Jul 10 at 4:09
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Yes - Robert Fico of Slovakia.

Fico is also on record publicly supporting China’s so-called ‘peace plan’ for Ukraine, which also garnered support from the radical far right [...] The party chairman Milan Uhrík also heaped praise on the Chinese ‘peace plan’, even meeting with the Chinese mission to the EU in Brussels to discuss the issue. In his role as an MEP, Uhrík has lambasted the EU’s efforts to reshape its policy on China, denying that the Asian power represents a threat to the bloc.

-- Source: https://chinaobservers.eu/will-slovak-elections-bring-a-turnaround-in-the-countrys-china-policy/

[![Source: The Straits Times, Singapore][1]][1]

Edit: As @haxor789 points out:

[Fico] is and has been prime minister of Slovakia, but has not been from 2018-2023. So precisely in the period that is relevant to the issue and that article is from about a week ahead of the election

Edit 2: In my opinion, the accepted answer is factually wrong. Even if you only consider "EU as European countries" - Slovakia is in EU and their position is more towards Russia / China - Robert Fico supports the China Peace Plan. Hungary is also part of EU - Victor Orban takes a non-west aligned position, often taking Russia / China lines of argument.

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  • Fico is also on record publicly supporting China’s so-called ‘peace plan’ for Ukraine What exactly did he say or write? (Briefly googling, I can't find anything other than that chinaobservers.eu page.)
    – user182601
    Commented Jul 10 at 4:24
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    @a20 This answer has not received any downvotes, so I don't know what gave you that impression. Even if it had, you should never assume that you know who downvoted your post unless they explicitly tell you.
    – F1Krazy
    Commented Jul 10 at 6:47
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    +1 for actaully answering the question, but I think the stuff at the end is not really relevant to the question.
    – Ian Sudbery
    Commented Jul 10 at 8:01
  • Was he prime minister of Slovakia when he did it? Like he is and has been prime minister of Slovakia, but has not been from 2018-2023. So precisely in the period that is relevant to the issue and that article is from about a week ahead of the election.
    – haxor789
    Commented Jul 10 at 8:41
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    Thanks - I've added your observation to the answer.
    – a20
    Commented Jul 10 at 9:20
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Depends on what you mean by "European", and whether you are restricting that to EU, or the geographical continent.

For example, Vucic, the president of Serbia, is reported to have said "China’s peace plan is the only reasonable initiative towards Ukraine" (Note: I've never heard of "fact-news" before, and I've no idea if its legitimate, but the claim is plausible).

I wouldn't surprise me if some of the more recently elected leaders with a more populist bent in some northern/western european coutries have said similar, although I havn't found any.

It also depends what you mean by "praise". The UK government said:

The Foreign Secretary was reported at the beginning of April 2023 to have said that while the UK supports certain elements within China’s peace proposals, the Government would like to see China “make good” its statements and work towards demanding that Russia also respects the principles that it lays down.

In a conversation with the Atlantic Council on 9 May 2023, the Foreign Secretary said that the UK welcomed the “just and sustainable conclusion of this war”, regardless of where the impetus came from, and expressed hope that China’s intervention was meaningful and that they are committed to it.

However, this is probably mostly diplomat speak because they also said (as part of a G7 statement they co-authored):

We underline that a just peace cannot be realized without the complete and unconditional withdrawal of Russian troops and military equipment, and this must be included in any call for peace

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To complete quarage's answer, and as a European myself, I would find any "peace proposal" made by China a bit hypocritical, given their own annexion ambitions as far as Taiwan is concerned, for which they are quite happy to display aggressive / military behavior. Any talk of peace coming from them regarding the Ukrainian-Russia war would sound cheap: it's easy for them to do so, given their lack of stakes in that conflict, it does not speak much of their character regarding war & peace general, since they are quite happy to promote war when the stakes are similar / high for them (Taiwan).

Now of course European countries are not saints either, as their history proves. But, right now, being more democratic states, and their people in general being quite content to be left alone (which, granted, is easier to do when one is rich), then their valuing of the general concept of peace (and "justice", which go rather hand in hand) sounds a lot more sincere that those coming from countries such as Russia or China.

In summary, we don't want to give brownie points to autocratic / totalitarian states for "advocating for peace" when there is no stakes for them in not doing so, and when they have demonstrated that they are right now quite happy to be military aggressive toward their neighbors when it suits them.

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    This answer explains why european have not generally praised China's "peace initatives", not whether any other leader has or not.
    – Ian Sudbery
    Commented Jul 9 at 14:14
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    @IanSudbery Sure, but by making the reasonable assumption that European leaders tend to think like the people that they lead as far as external policy is concerned (or at least regarding the merits and concepts of justice and peace), one gets the desired answer. So yeah, this hypothesis is implicit in the answer that I wrote, and that's worthy of being called out, but I would assume that making it is not a strech.
    – FrancoisTheFrenchOne
    Commented Jul 9 at 14:19
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    I don't think this answer is particularly helpful or relevant. In practice, the fact that you (or other people) might perceive China as hypocritical is of no consequence diplomatically. China's peace initiative is worth little because it's an unrealistic plan with almost no prospect of being implemented. If, on the other hand, China proposed something acceptable to both sides and had the diplomatic clout to bring Ukraine and Russia to the table and make it happen, it's quite likely that European leaders would embrace it notwithstanding China's stance on Taiwan.
    – JBentley
    Commented Jul 10 at 10:46
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    This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. - From Review
    – William Walker III
    Commented Jul 10 at 11:48
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    @alamar So many things wrong with that. It's apparently part the Russian narrative to pretend Maidan was a coup in order to justify invasions and annexations. First of all that's not how that works. even if that would have been a coup it would have been NONE of Russia's or anybody else's business outside of peacekeeping and that would NOT involve annexations. 2nd look up what a coup is... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_d'%C3%A9tat largely peaceful mass protests are not an illegal takeover by the military or parts of the government...
    – haxor789
    Commented Jul 11 at 9:59

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