“Beijing has its own plan, and Biden has few tools” – Yevhen Magda on the Biden-Xi meeting in Peru
14 November 2024 15:15
EXCLUSIVE
on November 16, US President-elect Joe Biden is scheduled to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Peru, which is likely to complete the cycle in Washington’s relations with Beijing before the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump. It is expected that Trump’s election victory and his well-known rhetoric toward China will create preconditions for more tense bilateral relations.
From the Ukrainian perspective, the questions remain the same: is China able to influence the end of the war in Ukraine, does it want to do so, and what leverage can Trump hope for? Political analyst Yevhen Magda gave his assessment of the situation in an exclusive commentary to Komersant ukrainskyi
.
“China has its own regulation plan”
According to the expert, China has its own vision of the international situation, which certainly includes the issue of global stability, including in the context of the war in Ukraine.
“We shouldn’t forget that China has its own regulation plan, as they call it, and therefore this is also a factor of influence that must be taken into account. But it is still hard to say how it will be implemented,”
– explains Magda.
The political analyst does not expect any concrete results from this meeting, given Biden’s current status.
“The Chinese leader realizes that Biden is already a lame duck, so he doesn’t have many tools. I don’t think he will be able to do anything in the next two months,”
– Magda emphasizes.
Therefore, the Chinese leadership is already adjusting to a new format of relations with the future Trump administration and formulating appropriate strategies.
“I wouldn’t overestimate this meeting [between Biden and Xi], if only for the simple reason that Western media write that Trump has a ‘revenge list’ and so on. It’s clear that Biden has to meet in such conditions now to say that everything is fine. But no one knows what will happen after January 20, and perhaps Trump himself does not know,”
– Magda emphasizes.
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Trump’s position on Ukraine
During the election campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly said that he would stop the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of his election. That time has now passed.
Also during the election, the media spread the so-called “Trump Plan”. The plan was that the United States would use its influence to stop the war, taking into account the status quo. To do this, Trump would force Putin and Zelenskyy to sit down at the negotiating table. If Putin does not agree to negotiate, the United States will give Ukraine all the weapons it needs to win on the battlefield. If Zelenskyy refuses to negotiate, the United States will completely stop helping Ukraine.
This plan, in its various variations, stipulates that Russia retains the territories it temporarily occupies and that Ukraine does not join NATO.
However, later Trump seemed to “forget” about this plan. In particular, he voiced scenarios in which he would force Russia to capitulate due to the decline in world oil prices.
After Trump was elected President of the United States, one of his advisors, Brian Lanza, said that Ukraine should forget about Crimea. The president-elect’s entourage, however, was quick to deny this statement and said that Lanza could not speak for Trump.
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