China lobbies other nations for its peace plan ahead of Peace Summit – Reuters

China, which will not attend this weekend's Peace Summit in Switzerland, is lobbying world governments ahead of the Swiss meeting to promote its peace plan. 

According to Reuters, 10 unnamed diplomats said that as the Peace Summit approaches, China has stepped up its outreach activities through meetings with visiting foreign dignitaries, phone calls and messages to foreign missions on the Chinese platform WeChat.

Beijing's special envoy for Eurasian affairs, Li Hui, visited Türkiye, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates last month and met with officials from developing countries at their embassies in Beijing, diplomats said.

In explaining why it will not attend the Peace Summit, China is trying to engage developing countries in a six-point peace plan it unveiled with Brazil last month.

In conversations with developing countries, China did not criticise the summit in Switzerland and did not explicitly ask them to refrain from attending, Beijing diplomats told the agency.

But one diplomat with knowledge of the outreach said Beijing told developing countries that the Peace Summit would prolong the war. Two diplomats said that China has been telling Western countries that many developing countries share its views on the Peace Summit.

The Chinese proposal envisages holding an international peace conference "at a proper time that is recognised by both Russia and Ukraine, with equal participation of all parties as well as fair discussion of all peace plans".

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested that China could organise such a conference. Russian leader Vladimir Putin expressed support for the Chinese plan, saying that Beijing fully understands what is behind it.

Last week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that 45 countries supported the Chinese proposal, and more than two dozen had either joined or were "seriously considering" it.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said last week: "China sincerely hopes that a peace conference will not turn into a platform used to create bloc confrontation. Not attending it does not mean not supporting peace."

Switzerland has changed the troublesome provisions of the final document of the Peace Summit, which could have had undesirable consequences for Ukraine – the text of the decision has been changed in recent days.

As a result, several states that had planned to attend the Peace Summit in Switzerland decided not to go there after the draft decision was changed in favour of Ukraine.