China informed that its special representative will arrive in Ukraine on May 15 to discuss the "political settlement" of Russiaʼs war against Ukraine.
Bloomberg writes about it.
According to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, on May 15, the special representative of the Chinese government for Eurasian affairs Li Hui will visit Ukraine, and then also Poland, France, Germany and Russia.
In a telephone conversation with Zelensky on April 26, Chinese leader Xi Jinping stated that China would send a special representative for Eurasian affairs to Ukraine and neighboring countries for "in-depth communication on the political settlement of the crisis in Ukraine."
The conversation with Zelensky took place shortly after Chinaʼs ambassador to France questioned the sovereignty of former Soviet states under international law during a broadcast on a French TV channel. This caused anger on the part of the Baltic states and other states. China later deleted the transcript of the speech and said it did not reflect government policy.
- 70-year-old Li Hui served in the Chinese embassy in the USSR in the 1980s, then he was the ambassador to Kazakhstan, and from 2009 to 2019 he was the ambassador to Russia.
- The American broadcaster NBC News told the biography of the special representative, from which it follows that Li Hui is a profitable figure for Moscow. And may even become the most convenient negotiator for the Russians when they have to lay down their arms. Hui devoted most of his career to work in the USSR and post-Soviet countries. In the late 1990s, he was Chinaʼs ambassador to Kazakhstan, and since 2009 he has worked as an ambassador to Russia for ten years. He assured that China needs a "stronger Russia", that both countries equally understand the need for a strong state and should support each other side by side. According to Russian analysts, Hui understands the worldview of the Russians, so his figure as a negotiator is quite comfortable, even if he will incline the Kremlin to decisions that are unpopular among the population of the aggressor country.
- The authors of NBC News also assumed that Hui is also an acceptable option for Ukraine — among his statements were not only pro-Russian, but also pro-Ukrainian. However, the article cites only one quote by Hui from a meeting with the Ukrainian delegation in 2005. At that time, the government of Ukraine was pro-Western, and despite this, Hui convinced that China supports the prosperity of our country in every possible way. However, this happened long before Hui began working as an ambassador in Moscow.