Cincunri Sakia

Senin, 20 Maret 2023

Putin Says Ready to Discuss China's Ukraine Plan at Xi Talks - The Moscow Times

President Vladimir Putin told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Monday that Russia was open to discussing China's proposals to end the fighting in Ukraine at the start of high-stakes talks in the Kremlin.

"We are always open to negotiations," Putin told Xi, who was on his first visit to Moscow since the start of Russia's military intervention in Ukraine last year.

"We will certainly discuss all these issues, including your initiatives which we treat with respect, of course," Putin said.

The summit between the Russian president and the Chinese leader comes as China seeks to portray itself as a neutral party in the Ukraine conflict.

But Washington has accused Beijing of mulling arms exports to Moscow — claims China has vociferously denied.

Xi's three-day trip also serves as a show of support for internationally isolated Putin, just days after a war crimes tribunal issued a warrant for his arrest over the accusation of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children.

Shortly after landing at Moscow's Vnukovo Airport, Xi said his visit would give "new momentum" to Chinese-Russian ties.

He was greeted by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko on a red carpet as a military brass band played the countries' anthems, Russian state media showed.

During his initial meeting with Putin, Xi hailed "close ties" with Russia and the Russian leader said the two countries had "plenty of common objectives and tasks."

The two will continue talks on Tuesday.

'Constructive role'

The two leaders are due to discuss China's 12-point position paper on the Ukraine conflict, which includes a call for dialogue and respect for all countries' territorial sovereignty.

Putin has welcomed Beijing's statements on Ukraine as being indicative of a willingness to play a "constructive role" in ending the conflict.

But Kyiv on Monday reiterated calls for Russia to withdraw its forces from Ukraine.

"We expect Beijing to use its influence on Moscow to make it put an end to the aggressive war against Ukraine," Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko said in comments sent to AFP.

A day before Xi's arrival, a defiant Putin went to the Russian-held Ukrainian city of Mariupol — his first visit to territory captured from Kyiv since Moscow's forces pushed across the border in February 2022.

Xi's visit also comes just days after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin on the accusation of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children.

'Objective and impartial'

Beijing said on Monday the ICC should avoid what it called "politicization and double standards" and respect the principle of immunity for heads of state.

The court should "uphold an objective and impartial stance" and "respect the immunity of heads of state from jurisdiction under international law," foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a regular briefing.

Russia said it opened a criminal probe into ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, saying he had accused "a person known to be innocent" and was planning "an attack on a representative of a foreign state enjoying international protection."

Beijing and Moscow have drawn closer in recent years under a partnership that has served as a diplomatic bulwark against the West.

China has lambasted what it sees as a U.S.-led pressure campaign against Russia as Moscow's military effort in Ukraine drags on, instead calling for what it calls "impartial" mediation of the conflict.

"No single country should dictate the international order," Xi wrote in a Russian newspaper article published on Monday.

"China has all along upheld an objective and impartial position based on the merits of the issue, and actively promoted peace talks," he added.

Closely watched

Beijing's stance has drawn criticism from Western nations, which say China is providing diplomatic cover for Moscow's armed intervention.

They argue that China's proposals are heavy on grand principles but light on practical solutions.

The United States last week said China's proposals would simply consolidate "Russian conquest" and allow the Kremlin to prepare a fresh offensive.

"We don't support calls for a ceasefire right now," White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Friday.

"We certainly don't support calls for a ceasefire that would be called for by the PRC in a meeting in Moscow that would simply benefit Russia," he said, referring to the People's Republic of China, the country's official name.

Analysts say Xi's moves are unlikely to yield a cessation of hostilities, but his trip will be closely watched in Western capitals.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Xi could also be planning his first call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky since the conflict began.

Zelensky has said he would welcome talks with his Chinese counterpart.

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2023-03-20 15:05:31Z
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Watch: Putin heckled during Mariupol visit - The Telegraph

Vladimir Putin was heckled by a Mariupol resident during his visit to the destroyed city on Sunday.

In television footage showing the Russian President meeting supposedly grateful Ukrainians, a woman’s voice can be heard shouting: “It’s all lies, it’s all just for show.”

The heckling, which seemed to have come from a nearby building, prompts Mr Putin’s security team to begin frantically looking around trying to identify the source of the disturbance.

The Russian President’s official visits are almost always carefully stage-managed, and this was particularly true of his trip to Mariupol, a city that was razed to the ground by Russia’s forces during a months-long siege.

The Russian leader flew into the city on an army helicopter and drove himself to meet residents in a reconstructed apartment block.

Putin heckled during his visit to Mariupol pic.twitter.com/r5equ9FWBk
— Arthur Scott-Geddes (@ascottgeddes) March 20, 2023

One resident sobbed as she told Mr Putin she now “owned a piece of paradise” after the leader asked if she liked her new apartment.

“Wow, we have only ever seen you on television,” said one man after shaking Mr Putin’s hand.

Mr Putin’s bodyguards, wearing microphones, hovered around him at all times during the visit, occasionally whispering into the ear of a resident or guiding them on where to stand.

“We’ll have to get to know each other better,” Mr Putin told the beaming residents.

Mr Putin’s trip to Mariupol was his first to territory captured since the invasion began last year.

It came after the International Criminal Court in the Hague issued an arrest warrant for the Russian President for alleged war crimes.

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2023-03-20 09:47:00Z
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Iraq War 20 years on: How Ukraine conflict, growing power of Iran and rise of Trump can be traced back to 2003 invasion - Sky News

At the turn of the century, America had emerged victorious from the Cold War and stood unchallenged.

It had greater power and influence than any other nation in history. It could have wielded that power judiciously to protect the American-led post-war world order and inspire other countries to follow its values of freedom and democracy.

Instead, it squandered that supremacy embarking on a calamitous misadventure in Iraq that was ill-advised and disastrously executed. It would be the beginning of the end of the pax Americana.

A direct line can be drawn between that debacle, which began on 20 March 2003 and others that followed, right up to the perilous state of the world today.

The war in Ukraine, the unchecked ascendancy of China, the growing power of Iran, and even the rise of Trump and the politics of populism all have roots that can be traced back to America's folly in Iraq.

The falsehoods and delusions that led to war

America went to war led by ideologues who believed they could refashion the Middle East in their own likeness and bring democracy and a more pro-Western outlook to the region.

The failure of that neoconservative project has done lasting damage to Americans' claims of exceptionalism, and their belief that their form of governance is an example to the rest of the world. And that has by extension done enduring harm to the American-led world order.

The failings of that project in Iraq are well documented. The false premise of non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the delusion that invaders would be welcomed as liberators, the absence of any plan for the day after. The damage to America's standing in the world has been incalculable.

Equally, human rights violations, violations of democratic norms, targeted killings, and the atrocities of Abu Ghraib prison, from where photographs showing abuse of inmates by US soldiers emerged, tarnished America's image as the standard-bearer of democracy and human rights.

Iraq fell apart under occupation. The US disbanded the Ba'ath party and sents its army home. In the vacuum sectarian extremists thrived. The war had been fought to neutralise the threat posed by Al Qaeda in the wake of 9/11.

The opposite happened and even more extreme groups were spawned launching unprecedented campaigns of terror against occupiers and civilians alike. From the failed states of Iraq and Syria, Islamic State was born - an organisation that for years wrenched swathes of territory from both countries and plumbed new depths of terror and depravity.

For America, the enduring impact of the war and occupation has been a weakening of Washington's influence in the world. When India and other countries in the global south sit on the fence in UN resolutions on Ukraine, their ambivalence can in part be traced back to America's record in Iraq.

A lasting impact on US foreign policy

The failure undermined America's own self-confidence. The spectre of Iraq made Barack Obama reluctant to be drawn into the Syria conflict and punish its leader's diabolical use of chemical weapons.

That reluctance was seen in Moscow as an American weakness, and arguably emboldened it to defy the West and seize Crimea with relative impunity a few years later. And that in turn encouraged Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine in earnest last year.

The distraction of Iraq led to failure in Afghanistan, a protracted two decades of occupation and a disastrous withdrawal.

Iraq sucked up what policymakers in Washington call bandwidth year after year, while in the east a far greater challenge was rising. The West would take years to wake up to the threat posed by China.

Closer to Iraq, Iran was strengthened. Before the invasion, its regional influence was limited to a militia in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah. Today it has clout in capitals from Beirut to Damascus to Baghdad to Yemen.

The war in Iraq has done damage to America's belief in itself. The conflict cost a trillion dollars and thousands of American lives. It has fuelled opposition to any more military adventures abroad.

And it has undermined Americans' faith in both government and the political and media elites meant to hold it to account. That only in part helps explain the rise of populism that ultimately brought Trump to the White House.

Iraq still recovering from journey to hell and back

In Iraq, people are now no longer living under tyranny. There is reportedly some sense of hope and renewal, but only recently. And the country has literally been to hell and back to get there.

Hundreds of thousands have died in the war and the waves of sectarian violence that followed. The country has been broken, its institutions destroyed and its economy ravaged.

It is only just beginning to recover from all that trauma. But perhaps it can now look forward cautiously to a slightly better future. That is more than might have been said had Saddam Hussein remained in power or any of his impulsive, venal sons.

Ten years ago, George W Bush said the final verdict on his actions in Iraq would come long after his death.

That may be true, and it may take more time to judge whether the removal of one of the worst tyrants in history in any way justified the enormous cost and pain that then ensued.

Twenty years on, though, we can say the invasion and occupation have had a lasting legacy on the region and the world, and much of that has not been for the better.

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2023-03-20 10:30:00Z
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Ukraine-Russia war latest: Xi Jinping arrives in Moscow to meet Putin - The Telegraph

Xi Jinping, the Chinese President, has arrived in Moscow for a summit with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, state media reported.

"On the afternoon of March 20, local time, President Xi Jinping arrived in Russia's capital Moscow by a special plane," state broadcaster CCTV said.

Mr Xi will be the first world leader to shake Mr Putin's hand since the International Criminal Court in the Hague issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader on Friday over the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia since the start of the war.

In a Chinese newspaper piece published on the Kremlin website late on Sunday, Mr Putin said he had high hopes for the visit by his "good old friend" Mr Xi.

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2023-03-20 10:49:06Z
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Australian police say removing millions of dead fish from Darling River near Menindee will be 'logistical nightmare' - Sky News

Removing millions of rotting fish from a river in the Australian outback will be a "logistical nightmare", according to police.

The fish started dying in the Darling River near the New South Wales town of Menindee, where temperatures have been reaching 40C, on Friday.

Experts say the die-off likely occurred because fish, mainly bony bream, cod and perch, need more oxygen in hot weather, but oxygen levels in the water dropped after recent floods receded.

Police Assistant Commissioner Brett Greentree said keeping the town's water supply pure was the main priority and removing the dead fish was the next most pressing issue.

Trained contractors have been contacted about removing the fish with nets, but dates for the work have not been set yet.

Residents have expressed their anger at the delay in starting the clean-up operation and have been concerned about their water supply becoming contaminated.

"I'm certainly not making promises that all the millions of fish will be removed by contractors because that is really a logistical nightmare," Mr Greentree said.

"I understand and acknowledge the smell and sights on the river - nobody wants to see that," he added.

Authorities were supplying drinking water to residents who rely on river water, which was continually being monitored for quality, Mr Greentree added.

Enormous fish kills also occurred on the river at Menindee during severe drought conditions in late 2018 and early 2019.

Joy Becker, a professor of aquatic animal health at the University of Sydney, said it would take a significant amount of time for the river's ecosystem to recover.

"It does mean that those populations [of fish] may not rebound as quickly or at the same magnitude," she said.

"Pest species can actually just take over that spot, which makes it even harder for native fish to recover."

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2023-03-20 08:08:18Z
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Compare Iraq with Ukraine. It’s clear the era of US global supremacy is over - The Guardian

It’s a useful coincidence that the 20th anniversary of George W Bush and Tony Blair’s illegal attack on Iraq falls only a matter of weeks after the anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s illegal attack on Ukraine. Neither war was authorised by the UN. Both are marked by massive destruction and huge loss of life.

The Bush/Blair invasion and occupation of Iraq, and its chaotic consequences, have taken the lives of more than a million Iraqi civilians, according to one survey. US forces committed innumerable war crimes, not least the torture of captured soldiers. At the Abu Ghraib detention centre near Baghdad, US officers humiliated Iraqi prisoners in violation of the Geneva conventions. The invasion provoked widespread resistance, but US counter-insurgency tactics involved raids on villages that led to massacres of unarmed civilians.

The world reacted to the Bush/Blair war with disapproval, but almost no action was taken against them. There were no state-imposed sanctions on the US or Britain. No investigators from the international criminal court took evidence to substantiate prosecutions for war crimes. A few individuals and some human rights organisations called for Blair to be indicted on the charge of committing the crime of aggression, but no government approached the UN with a resolution to open a criminal case against them.

Now consider the very different reaction to Vladimir Putin’s illegal war on Ukraine. Virtually every western government, following the US’s lead, has slapped sanctions on Russia’s exports. Russia’s financial holdings in US banks have been frozen. Putin’s friends have had their yachts and other property impounded – and then a few days ago the international criminal court issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes involving the illegal deportation of children from Ukraine.

The contrast in the global reaction to the two wars is instructive. Nothing better illustrates the differential between Russia’s meagre international authority and that of the US. For Putin it is humiliating. He may like to think of his country as a superpower, but in reality, beyond holding a massive nuclear arsenal, Russia has little global clout and few foreign friends. Putin is widely criticised for trying to recreate an old-fashioned empire by seizing land and intimidating states on Russia’s western and southern borders.

The US, for its part, runs a new style of non-territorial empire with great success. It enjoys enormous political and economic influence on every continent, dominates the international financial system, and operates 750 military bases in more than 80 countries. Most of the world dare not oppose Washington’s writ.

Some analysts argue that if Russia is defeated in its current war on Ukraine, Europe will be able to enjoy a post-imperial system of peaceful relations and autonomy on the continent for the first time in history. They forget Nato. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization began in 1949 and still continues in part as an instrument for US hegemony in Europe. Allies may decline to participate in US military operations, as France and Germany boldly did over Iraq in 2003, but they do not publicly denounce them as illegal or call for sanctions.

Europeans and some Americans, including past and present senior officials, who argued against the expansion of Nato after the demise of the Soviet Union – or even advocated the alliance’s dissolution now that the enemy was gone – were never going to achieve their goals. The Baltic states and Poland craved the protection of the imperial American umbrella, which the US military-industrial complex was not going to give up in any case.

Equally unattainable was the proposal that Nato should invite the Russian Federation to join, thereby promoting post-cold war reconciliation. It was not to be. Even though Russian leaders, both Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, were keen to end the division of Europe, Washington would not open the alliance to a new member who could match the US’s nuclear potential and might question its political priorities.

Now, 30 years after the demise of the Soviet Union, there are signs that the unipolar world of US dominance may be coming to an end. The main challenger is not Putin’s Russia, but an increasingly confident China. Leaders in the global south are also stirring. In the first flush of shock over Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in February last year, more than 140 UN states voted to condemn it. But only around 40 countries in total have joined the US in imposing sanctions on Russia. As the west floods Ukraine with military hardware, the notion that it is merely helping to defend Ukraine looks questionable to many Asian, African and Latin American states who suspect the end goal to be regime change in the Kremlin.

A survey by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) reveals a significant shift in public opinion in several key countries. People want to see a quick end to the war in Ukraine, even if it means Ukraine giving up western-supported aspirations to victory and accepting the temporary loss of some territory. It is not only citizens of authoritarian China who think this way. So do citizens in India and Turkey.

Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, told the Munich Security Conference last month: “I see how powerful the Russian narrative is, its accusations of double standards.” France’s Emmanuel Macron said he was “shocked by how much credibility we are losing in the global south”.

Some fear a new cold war, this time between the west and China. Looking 10 years ahead, others expect to see a multipolar world in which states will not be pressured to align themselves with one side or the other. Either way, in spite of the resurgence of US power in Europe as a result of the war in Ukraine, the era of US supremacy in the rest of the world may soon be over.

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2023-03-20 08:01:00Z
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Will Xi-Putin summit deliver a breakthrough on Ukraine war? - Al Jazeera English

Chinese President Xi Jinping is on his way to Moscow, on a “voyage of friendship”, “cooperation” and “peace”, weeks after Beijing unveiled a 12-point position paper calling for a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war and days after it mediated a surprise rapprochement between longtime Middle East foes, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Xi’s three-day visit, which begins on Monday, will feature one-on-one talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a man the Chinese leader has described as his “best friend” and who is now wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes accusations.

The summit in Moscow will be the 40th meeting between the two men.

The visit by Xi – who was recently reappointed as China’s leader for an unprecedented third term and who is seeking a greater role for Beijing on the world stage – has raised hopes in some quarters of a breakthrough in ending the war in Ukraine. The conflict, now in its second year, has claimed tens of thousands of lives, forced millions from their homes, and caused widespread economic pain, with inflation soaring across the globe and supplies of grain, fertiliser and energy in short supply.

The hopes have been kindled not only by Beijing’s mediation in the Saudi-Iran détente and its proposal for a truce and dialogue between Moscow and Kyiv but also by media reports that Xi intends to follow on his summit with Putin with a virtual meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

If it takes place, the conversation between Xi and Zelenskyy will be their first since Russian tanks rolled across Ukraine’s border in February of last year.

[embedded content]

Global peacemaker?

Despite the surge in China’s global diplomacy, most observers say Xi’s state visit is more about cementing the “no limits” partnership that he announced with Putin last year than about brokering peace in Ukraine. That’s because, for starters, neither of the warring parties appears ready or willing to end the fighting.

“Unless and until Russia and Ukraine have exhausted their will to continue fighting and are looking for off-ramps for this conflict, it is not possible to end it,” said Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “And I don’t think that China wants to get in the middle of it.”

China’s 12-point paper on Ukraine, Glaser said, was a summary of its positions and not a “peace plan”, especially as it did not outline any specific area where Beijing was willing to play a more active role.

Indeed, the paper – unveiled on the anniversary of the war – reflects China’s ambiguous stance on the conflict. While the document supports Ukraine’s sovereignty and calls for the war’s swift resolution, it lays blames for the crisis on what it calls a “Cold War mentality”, that is NATO’s expansion eastwards and the West’s disregard for Russia’s security concerns. It also condemns the West’s “unilateral sanctions” against Russia, despite Beijing mostly having adhered to the measures over the past year.

“The paper contains a whole paragraph on the need for humanitarian assistance, but where is China providing this aid? So, it’s not a peace plan and China is not playing the role of peacemaker,” Glaser said.

She went on to add that the Saudi-Iran agreement – which ended seven years of estrangement and challenged the US’s longstanding role as the main power broker in the Middle East – did not mean that China was now going to emerge as a major mediator for global disputes.

“The lesson of the Saudi-Iran deal is that China is very well attuned to opportunity,” she said. “It became increasingly clear that Saudi Arabia and Iran were looking for a way to begun to improve their relationship. And China seized that opportunity to help bring that across the finish line.”

And for the Russia-Ukraine war, that “moment has not yet arrived”, she added.

Still, the conflict is likely to feature high on Xi’s agenda.

Writing in the Russian newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta, a daily published by the Russian government, Xi on Monday called for a “rational way” out of the Ukraine conflict and said China’s position paper “serves as a constructive factor in neutralising the consequences of the crisis and promoting a political settlement”.

Despite the deep scepticism in the West about China’s ability to be an honest broker in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, it appears in a better position than most countries to play mediator.

China is Russia’s most important ally, after all.

And while it has adhered to Western sanctions and refrained from coming to Moscow’s military aid, it has kept up normal trade ties, replacing Germany as the largest importer of Russian oil last year. Bilateral trade in non-sanctioned sectors has also ballooned, reaching a record-breaking $190bn last year.

The two neighbours – who share a long border – have also kept up the pace of their joint military exercises, holding large-scale naval drills in the East China Sea in late December. They also held joint drills with South Africa in February and Iran earlier this month.

[embedded content]

Responsible, great power

China’s leverage over Russia, as well as its desire to be perceived as a responsible third force in global politics, could push Xi, some analysts said, to press Putin for “mini-steps” in the direction of a truce and dialogue in Ukraine.

“China wants to be perceived as a responsible great power,” said Moritz Rudolf, fellow and research scholar in law at the Paul Tsai China Center of the Yale Law School. “It is remarkable that China is presenting its own position at all, when it’s actually about a war in Europe. This is a true new quality of the China’s engagement at the international level and I think it is here to stay.”

Rudolf said although China’s position paper lacked substance, Beijing has positioned itself as the “only country that is potentially able to, or at least, be one of the countries that will need to be part of a peaceful solution” in Ukraine. This, he said, is in line with China’s ambitions to reshape a global order that it perceives as skewed unfairly to the West and one where the US and its allies set the rules to their advantage.

Whether Xi is seeking an active role in the Ukraine crisis will probably become clearer after his Moscow trip, Rudolf said.

If the Chinese leader were to visit other European capitals after his trip to Russia – as reported by the Wall Street Journal – and if he were to speak to Zelenskyy soon after his summit with Putin, it would show if Xi was indeed trying to play a serious role, he added.

With expectations of a breakthrough on Ukraine low, Xi and Putin’s discussions of substance will probably focus on expanding and deepening their economic and military ties.

“All in all, it is an important visit signifying the importance of Russia-China strategic partnership for each other,” said Anna Kireeva, associate professor in the Department of Asian and African Studies at Moscow’s MGIMO University.

“New economic agreements can be expected, especially in energy … Russia urgently needs to find alternative destinations for its exports, and China is more than willing to buy Russian energy resources and raw materials at discounted prices,” she said.

This could translate into a deal on a new pipeline, Power-of-Siberia 2, to deliver gas to China via Mongolia, she said.

Xi and Putin will also use their summit to signal the stability of the relations between their two countries, despite the turbulence in world politics, thereby presenting a united front against the US and increasing Moscow’s global standing, Kireeva said.

“As long as Moscow and Beijing retain their strategic partnership, it means they cannot be fully geopolitically encircled,” she added.

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2023-03-20 05:39:36Z
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