The EU's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, called on China on Oct. 13 to support Ukraine's peace formula and to use its influence on Russia to end the war while on his official visit to Beijing.
"This war has to finish. And in order to finish the war, there have to be negotiations for peace," Borrell said at a joint press conference with China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
"The best way for us to take these negotiations (forward) is Ukraine's peace formula – and we count on China to support this."
The EU official voiced his appreciation that China has not provided direct military support to Russia's war against Ukraine and that Chinese representatives attended the international peace plan talks in Saudi Arabia in August.
He also asked Beijing to sway Russia toward returning to the Black Sea grain deal, unilaterally terminated by Moscow in July.
Borrell arrived in China on Oct. 12 for the 12th Strategic Dialogue between the European Union and China. The visit is meant to "pave the way" for an EU-China summit by the end of 2023.
While China has publicly positioned itself as a neutral party in the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine and urged a peaceful solution, Beijing has backed Moscow against the West's effort to isolate Russia internationally.
The Chinese government publicly denied that it had provided military aid to the Kremlin. However, a U.S. intelligence report from July 27 suggested that China has, in fact, exported significant amounts of dual-use technologies that Moscow deploys for military purposes in Ukraine.
