De-escalating tensions urged

Foreign Minister Wang Yi attends a United Nations Security Council high-level meeting on the Ukraine crisis at the UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday. (MINLU ZHANG/CHINA DAILY)

Beijing has reiterated its appeal to speed up efforts in de-escalating the Ukraine crisis and facilitating peace talks, as the Russia-Ukraine conflict has dragged on for more than two years with no immediate resolution in sight.

The international community should work together to build stronger consensus on a cease-fire and promote a political settlement, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at a United Nations Security Council high-level meeting on Tuesday in New York.

The prolonged crisis "adds to the suffering of the people, inflicts further damage on the region, and brings greater instability to the world", Wang said.

The top priority is to follow the three principles of "no expansion of the battlefield, no escalation of fighting, and no provocation by any party", which were put forward by China and Brazil in a consensus document on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis in May, the foreign minister said.

Parties involved should avoid using weapons of mass destruction and refrain from attacking civilians, civilian facilities, and peaceful nuclear facilities, such as nuclear power plants, he said.

"The more weapons are delivered to the battlefield, the harder it will be to achieve a cease-fire — this is a reality we must confront," Wang said, urging all parties to abandon Cold War confrontational thinking and play a constructive role in de-escalating tensions.

Pointing out that holding dialogue and negotiations is the only way out of the crisis, he warned that if peace talks fail to happen in time, misunderstanding and misjudgment would accumulate, risking a greater crisis.

More and more countries in the Global South are working together to create favorable conditions for restoring peace, Wang said, adding that the Global South has suffered seriously from the ongoing crisis, which has made the world economy even more sluggish.

The spillover effect of the crisis must be managed, Wang said. He repeated China's call for concerted international efforts to maintain a stable and smooth global supply chain and protect the interests of developing countries.

He said the international community should strengthen cooperation on energy, finance, trade, food security, and the protection of key infrastructure, such as oil and gas pipelines.

"No party should abuse illegal and unilateral sanctions and crack down on normal trade under the pretext of the crisis, let alone divide the world and create exclusive blocs," Wang said.

China is neither the creator of nor a party involved in the Ukraine crisis, he said, adding that the country has played its due part in addressing the issue by maintaining communications with Russia, Ukraine, and other parties and working continuously to advocate peace and bring about dialogue.

The senior diplomat is in New York, as the special representative of President Xi Jinping, to attend the UN Summit of the Future and the general debate of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, while taking part in a series of other events.

Wang's participation in Tuesday's high-level meeting came two months after he met with then-Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba in China, where both sides voiced their hopes for addressing the crisis through negotiations.

Zhao Huirong, a researcher at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the chances of a resolution of the crisis remain "slim" due to a lack of trust between Russia and Ukraine.

China has persisted in its efforts to promote peace talks, and its position and efforts are gaining recognition from an increasing number of countries, Zhao said.

In another development, Wang also attended the eighth Dialogue of Foreign Ministers of China and the Quartet of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States at the UN headquarters on Tuesday.