BEIJING: China came out in support of US President Donald Trump’s bid to strike a deal with Russia to end the war in Ukraine, at a G20 meeting in South Africa on Thursday, while US allies rallied around Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Less than a month into his presidency, Trump has upended US policy on the war, scrapping a campaign to isolate Moscow with a phone call to Russian President Vladimir Putin and talks between senior US and Russian officials that have sidelined Ukraine.
Trump on Wednesday then denounced Zelensky as a “dictator,” prompting statements of support for the Ukrainian president from G20 members such as Australia, Germany and the United Kingdom.
“China supports all efforts conducive to peace (in Ukraine), including the recent consensus reached between the United States and Russia,” Wang Yi told other G20 foreign ministers gathered in Johannesburg, according to a statement from his ministry.
“China is willing to continue playing a constructive role in the political resolution of the crisis,” he added.
Wang did not reiterate the point he made at the Munich Security Conference last Friday that all stakeholders in the Russia-Ukraine conflict should participate in any peace talks.
Beijing wants to ensure its involvement in whatever deal Trump seeks to strike with the Kremlin to prevent a currently diplomatically-isolated Russia from slipping out from under its influence, and because its ties to Russia offer China an “in” with European officials worried about being frozen out of any talks, analysts say.
“By going straight to Putin, President Trump has erased what Beijing had hoped could be a key piece of initial leverage,” said Ruby Osman, a China expert at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
“Instead, China might turn its attention to discussing a Chinese role in eventual reconstruction and peacekeeping — something that would give Beijing a significantly more vested interest in European security architecture,” she added.
The Trump administration said on Tuesday it had agreed to hold more talks with Russia on ending the nearly three-year long conflict after a 4-1/2-hour long meeting in Saudi Arabia.
Russia said the talks had been useful, but hardened its demands, notably insisting it would not tolerate the NATO alliance granting membership to Ukraine.
China backs Trump’s Ukraine peace bid at G20 as US allies rally behind Zelensky
https://arab.news/8vc6y
China backs Trump’s Ukraine peace bid at G20 as US allies rally behind Zelensky
- China says supports US, Russia talks on Ukraine at G20 meeting
- Says willing to continue to play a role in resolving crisis
Italian police fire tear gas as protesters clash near Winter Olympics hockey venue
- Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue
MILAN: Italian police fired tear gas and a water cannon at dozens of protesters who threw firecrackers and tried to access a highway near a Winter Olympics venue on Saturday.
The brief confrontation came at the end of a peaceful march by thousands against the environmental impact of the Games and the presence of US agents in Italy.
Police held off the violent demonstrators, who appeared to be trying to reach the Santagiulia Olympic ice hockey rink, after the skirmish. By then, the larger peaceful protest, including families with small children and students, had dispersed.
Earlier, a group of masked protesters had set off smoke bombs and firecrackers on a bridge overlooking a construction site about 800 meters (a half-mile) from the Olympic Village that’s housing around 1,500 athletes.
Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue. A heavy police presence guarded the entire route.
There was no indication that the protest and resulting road closure interfered with athletes’ transfers to their events, all on the outskirts of Milan.
The demonstration coincided with US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Milan as head of the American delegation that attended the opening ceremony on Friday.
He and his family visited Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” closer to the city center, far from the protest, which also was against the deployment of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to provide security to the US delegation.
US Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE unit that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. The ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown in the US is known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there is no indication its officers are being sent to Italy.
At the larger, peaceful demonstration, which police said numbered 10,000, people carried cardboard cutouts to represent trees felled to build the new bobsled run in Cortina. A group of dancers performed to beating drums. Music blasted from a truck leading the march, one a profanity-laced anti-ICE anthem.
“Let’s take back the cities and free the mountains,” read a banner by a group calling itself the Unsustainable Olympic Committee. Another group called the Association of Proletariat Excursionists organized the cutout trees.
“They bypassed the laws that usually are needed for major infrastructure project, citing urgency for the Games,” said protester Guido Maffioli, who expressed concern that the private entity organizing the Games would eventually pass on debt to Italian taxpayers.
Homemade signs read “Get out of the Games: Genocide States, Fascist Police and Polluting Sponsors,” the final one a reference to fossil fuel companies that are sponsors of the Games. One woman carried an artificial tree on her back decorated with the sign: “Infernal Olympics.”
The demonstration followed another last week when hundreds protested the deployment of ICE agents.
Like last week, demonstrators Saturday said they were opposed to ICE agents’ presence, despite official statements that a small number of agents from an investigative arm would be present in US diplomatic territory, and not operational on the streets.
