Swiss Ambassador Gabriel Luechinger acknowledged that last weekend’s talks that he helped organize were insufficient for bringing peace to Ukraine and that the next ones will therefore be much more different. In his words, “What is clear is that the next peace summit will not be in Europe, and will not take place in the West”, and “Russia should be integrated in the peace process in some way.” This sensible stance is long-overdue and was brought about by the confluence of three key factors.
Although “The Swiss Talks On Ukraine Weren’t As Bad As Some In Russia Expected”, they still conspicuously excluded that country while China declined to attend in solidarity, thus leaving out the conflict’s other primary participant and its top strategic partner. Literally the day before they took place, President Putin unveiled his generous ceasefire proposal, thus stealing the thunder from that event. And finally, China and Brazil are nowadays working very hard to jointly organize their own peace process.
Accordingly, the corresponding lessons to be learned are that: Russia must be included in any peace process if it’s to have a chance of achieving anything tangible; Ukraine must agree to President Putin’s minimum ceasefire terms; and China and Brazil will play pivotal roles in any new process. Elaborating on the last-mentioned point, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi revealed that more and more countries are coming out in support of last month’s Sino-Brazilian six-point consensus on peace in Ukraine.
This adds context to what else he said in the run-up to last weekend’s Swiss talks about the need “for convening a real peace conference that would be approved by the Russian and Ukrainian sides”, the basis of which would be the aforesaid consensus if one reads between the lines. Brazil could host these talks ahead of and/or in parallel with November’s G20 in Rio while China could encourage its dozens of partners across the Global South to attend in order to give them hefty diplomatic weight.
Prior to Luechinger’s comments, it was unclear whether the West would participate in this proposed process, but his remarks suggest that Switzerland might call on all those who it invited to last weekend’s talks to take part in any forthcoming Chinese-organized but Brazilian-hosted ones. Switzerland’s (outdated) reputation in Western eyes as a “neutral” country could influence them to seriously consider this, especially since it hosted the latest talks that the West hyped up as a big deal.
If the organizer suggests that everyone participates in the next ones in order to build upon their joint communique and explore ways to include at least parts of it in whatever the upcoming talks might agree upon, then it’ll be difficult for them to decline without tacitly discarding their prior achievement. The only pretext upon which they might ignore an invitation to that potentially forthcoming summit is the one that was introduced by Swedish anti-Russian hawks in the article that they just published in Politico.
Titled “Final blow to Chinese ‘neutrality’ on Ukraine war”, they sought to spin its boycott of last weekend’s event as proof of support for Russia, advising at the end that “European leaders are right to maintain a dialogue with China and to continue demanding Xi uses his leverage. But until China does so, letting Beijing take on a major role in the peace process risks legitimizing the invasion.” What the authors omit to mention is that refusing to participate in any Chinese-organized talks would isolate the West.
It should be taken for granted that China’s dozens of partners across the Global South would attend any Brazilian-hosted talks that it organizes and agree to a joint communique afterwards for confirming their support of those two’s six-point peace consensus. Seeing as how last weekend’s joint communique actually includes three of China’s 12 points for peace that it first proposed in February 2023, which French entrepreneur Arnaud Bertrand explained here, the West has everything to gain by attending.
By doing so, those countries could do their best to ensure that some variation of their joint communique’s points is included in the one that follows those forthcoming talks, which would enable them to take partial credit for that and guarantee that they participate in the next talks afterwards. If they boycott them, then they’d voluntarily cede full diplomatic influence over this process to China, though the trade-off for attending would be that they’d legitimize its leading diplomatic role.
The People’s Republic has therefore masterfully placed the West on the horns of a dilemma since it’s arguably better from the perspective of European interests to legitimize China’s role in any new peace process than to exclude themselves from it entirely. Switzerland’s tacit support for what might soon be Chinese-organized but Brazilian-hosted talks puts pressure on its continental partners to participate and might cause friction with the US if the latter sits them out due to its rivalry with China.
If top EU countries boycott them, then they’d tacitly discard last weekend’s achievement and further discredit their own diplomacy, while attending them in order to preserve positive perceptions about the integrity of their diplomacy might anger the US by legitimizing China’s role. It’s unclear whether those countries still have enough strategic autonomy vis-à-vis the US to not sacrifice their interests in this respect so it remains to be seen what they’ll do if/when such talks are announced.
Nevertheless, the participation of at least comparatively minor Western countries like Hungary as well as many – if not all – of those Global South states that attended the Swiss talks would give any Chinese-organized but Brazilian-hosted ones hefty diplomatic weight. The West would then be pressured like never before to at least pay lip service to the joint Sino-Brazilian six-point peace consensus if the majority of the international community throws their support behind it.
Failure to do so would accelerate their diplomatic isolation, which the West is very sensitive about since they believe that perceptions play an important role in policy formulation and thus fear that the Global South would then continue moving closer to China at their expense, hence why they might participate. Regardless of whatever they do, China will still score some sort of a diplomatic win at the end of the day, with the only question being the form that it’ll take and how it’ll leverage that in the future.
