# Did any other European leader praise China for its peace initiatives since the outbreak of the Ukraine war?

> TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping called on world powers to help Russia and Ukraine resume direct dialogue during a meeting Monday with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
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> Orbán made a surprise visit to China after similar trips last week to Russia and Ukraine to discuss prospects for a peaceful settlement of more than the two-year war. Hungary assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union this month and Orbán has since embarked on a peace mission, which, however, lacks the endorsement of other European leaders.
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> “China is a key power in creating the conditions for peace in the Russia-Ukraine war,” Orbán wrote on the social media platform X. “This is why I came to meet with President Xi in Beijing, just two months after his official visit to Budapest.”
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> Orbán is widely seen as having the warmest relations with Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin among European leaders. His visit to Moscow last week drew condemnation from Kyiv and EU officials, who insisted Orbán was not acting on behalf of the whole European bloc.

Did any other European leader praise China for its peace initiatives since the outbreak of the Ukraine war?

During his meeting with Xi, Orbán described China as a stabilizing force amid global turbulence and praised its “constructive and important” peace initiatives. I am wondering if any other leader in Europe has praised China for the same reason since the outbreak of the Ukraine war.

I interpret European leaders here to primarily mean EU leaders, for countries outside the EU see for example the answer by user182601.

The kind of peace agreements China envisons are fundamentally at odds with what European leaders want in a peace agreement. Therefore none of the EU leaders praised the Chinese proposals.

The gist of the Chinese proposals is that everyone stops fighting and the borders are frozen as they currently are. Which in practice means Russia gets to keep significant parts of Ukraine. This is nowhere close to what European leaders deem an acceptable outcome of the war. So they won't praise China for that. They also won't praise Russia if they made a similar proposal. As is common with negative statements, I can't give a source that shows the non-existence of such praise.

Yes, Putin and Lukashenko are "European leader[s]" who have "praise[d] China for its peace initiatives".

_Politico_ (2024-05-24):

> "Putin backs China’s ‘plan’ for peace in Ukraine" ...
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> Putin praised his counterpart Xi Jinping's commitment to a "just multipolar world order," ...
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> "We are positive in our assessment of China's approach to solving the Ukrainian crisis," Putin said ...
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> Putin said China's contribution showed it understands the roots of the Ukraine crisis and its geopolitical impact and sincerely wants to achieve peace

BBC (2023-03-02):

> Mr Lukashenko said his country "fully supports" a Beijing plan for ending the war in Ukraine. ...
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> The Belarus leader praised China's peace plan. ...
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> Mr Lukashenko said he "fully supports the initiative on international security you have put forward"

**Yes - Robert Fico of Slovakia.**

> Fico is also on record publicly supporting China’s so-called ‘peace plan’ for Ukraine, which also garnered support from the radical far right [...] The party chairman Milan Uhrík also heaped praise on the Chinese ‘peace plan’, even meeting with the Chinese mission to the EU in Brussels to discuss the issue. In his role as an MEP, Uhrík has lambasted the EU’s efforts to reshape its policy on China, denying that the Asian power represents a threat to the bloc.
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> \-- Source: https://chinaobservers.eu/will-slovak-elections-bring-a-turnaround-in-the-countrys-china-policy/

[![Source: The Straits Times, Singapore][1]][1]

Edit: As @haxor789 points out:

> [Fico] is and has been prime minister of Slovakia, but has not been from 2018-2023. So precisely in the period that is relevant to the issue and that article is from about a week ahead of the election

Depends on what you mean by "European", and whether you are restricting that to EU, or the geographical continent.

For example, Vucic, the president of Serbia, is reported to have said "China’s peace plan is the only reasonable initiative towards Ukraine" (Note: I've never heard of "fact-news" before, and I've no idea if its legitimate, but the claim is plausible).

I wouldn't surprise me if some of the more recently elected leaders with a more populist bent in some northern/western european coutries have said similar, although I havn't found any.

It also depends what you mean by "praise". The UK government said:

> The Foreign Secretary was reported at the beginning of April 2023 to have said that while the UK supports certain elements within China’s peace proposals, the Government would like to see China “make good” its statements and work towards demanding that Russia also respects the principles that it lays down.
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> In a conversation with the Atlantic Council on 9 May 2023, the Foreign Secretary said that the UK welcomed the “just and sustainable conclusion of this war”, regardless of where the impetus came from, and expressed hope that China’s intervention was meaningful and that they are committed to it.

However, this is probably mostly diplomat speak because they also said (as part of a G7 statement they co-authored):

> We underline that a just peace cannot be realized without the complete and unconditional withdrawal of Russian troops and military equipment, and this must be included in any call for peace

To complete quarage's answer, and as a European myself, I would find any "peace proposal" made by China a bit hypocritical, given their own annexion ambitions as far as Taiwan is concerned, for which they are quite happy to display aggressive / military behavior. Any talk of peace coming from them regarding the Ukrainian-Russia war would sound cheap: it's easy for them to do so, given their lack of stakes in that conflict, it does not speak much of their character regarding war & peace general, since they are quite happy to promote war when the stakes are similar / high for them (Taiwan).

Now of course European countries are not saints either, as their history proves. But, right now, being more democratic states, and their people in general being quite content to be left alone (which, granted, is easier to do when one is rich), then their valuing of the general concept of peace (and "justice", which go rather hand in hand) sounds a lot more sincere that those coming from countries such as Russia or China.

In summary, we don't want to give brownie points to autocratic / totalitarian states for "advocating for peace" when there is no stakes for them in not doing so, and when they have demonstrated that they are right now quite happy to be military aggressive toward their neighbors when it suits them.