Western Hysteria Over Xi-Putin Meeting Exposes Opposition to Peace in Ukraine
19:17 21.03.2023 (Updated: 11:18 12.04.2023)
© Sputnik . Sergey Karpuhin
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Xi Jinping's trip to Moscow for talks with Vladimir Putin have prompted a flurry of diversions and denunciations from the West. International geopolitical consultant, speaker, author, veteran, and former international security analyst David Oualaalou unpicks the motives behind them.
The West's focus on Beijing's blueprint for peace in Ukraine amid the Russia-China leaders' summit betrays its intent to prolong the conflict, a geopolitical analyst has said.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby reacted to the three-day meeting in Moscow between Russian President Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping by branding Beijing's 12-point plan for a ceasefire "unacceptable" — comments echoed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The UK has doubled down on the race to arm Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky's regime to the teeth with the announcement that it will provide depleted uranium (DU) armour-piercing rounds for the 14 Challenger 2 tanks it is gifting to Kiev.
David Oualaalou told Sputnik that the US media should be honest that "we, the West, do not want a peaceful initiative that will be initiated by China."
"President Xi is in Moscow already and the media already is focusing too much about what he's going to be talking about: Ukraine," he said, adding that "Ukraine is going to be just part of the conversation."
Far more important were financial moves to "truly cripple the US dollar in every transactions between the countries," with a "digital currency or whatever that is going to be backed by gold, not the US dollar," pointing out that "the two countries that are really amassing massive gold are Russia and China."
The consultant also called the attempt by International Criminal Court — not recognised by either Russia, China or the US — to upstage the summit by charging Putin with mass child abduction days earlier "ludicrous" asking: "What credibility does the ICC have?"
He said the move would only prevent talks between Russia and Ukraine's NATO backers going ahead, killing any hope Kiev may have of winning back some territory at the negotiating table, stressing: "That territory is not returning back to Ukraine. It's done. That's to me, what it means."
The analyst said the dozen points in China's plan — including an end to the West's "Cold War mentality" and its resort to unilateral sanctions were "pragmatic" and "straightforward" — but Washington is just not interested.
"The reason why we the US, we collective West, are opposing to this is we do not want a peace initiative to be initiated by non-Western countries such as China," Oulaalou said. "That's how much we want the conflict to drag on."
"At the same time our credibility on the global stage has been shattered because we have never been that honest broker," he added. "Look no further than the Arab-Israeli conflict."
By contrast, China has just succeeded in helping mend relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia after years of knife-edge tensions — a low-key diplomatic effort that excluded the West.
"The negotiations were not conducted in English," Oulaalou noted. "The communique that came out of that trilateral meeting was not in English language. And right there, it sends a clear message to how irrelevant the US is becoming when it comes down to issues like this of brokering a peace."
"This is why we are objecting to China taking the initiative, to put an end to the Ukrainian conflict because some entities within Washington do not want that," he added. "The fact that China brokered a deal on the Ukraine conflict says a lot about where the current global order is."
The commentator recalled how Boris Johnson rushed to Kiev in early April 2022 to talk Zelensky out of approving a Russian peace proposal that would have likely committed Ukraine to remaining neutral of NATO and ceding its claim to Crimea and the Donbass republics in return for a quick rapid end to hostilities.
"Boris Johnson was dispatched by the United States because we didn't want to be on the stage," Oulaalou said. "It's no different than what's going on right now," he added in the wake of Washington's rejection of a ceasefire.
Beijing's peace plan is far more likely to end the conflict than the West's policy of arming Ukraine while demanding Russia withdraw unconditionally, simply because it has a better relationship with Moscow and "will be able to convince Russia" to come to terms. "Russia is not going to see us also knowing how this initiative is going to be sabotaged," he stressed.
