The one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine was always going to attract a glut of international commentary.
Perhaps the most bizarre intervention of all, however, has been China’s attempt to steal the headlines by proposing peace talks between the warring parties.
China has not, by the standards of anyone interested in upholding freedom, had a good war.
The country that last year suggested it had a “no-limits friendship” with Russia has refused to condemn Vladimir Putin’s land grab or even call Russia’s offensive an “invasion”.
Despite claiming to be a neutral party, the Chinese Communist Party has shown no similar hesitation in criticising Free World sanctions on Russia.
Yet, although it is fully aware that Putin uses his export revenue to prop up his malevolent war effort, China has taken full advantage of those same sanctions to step in and become Russia’s leading trading partner.
According to the Chinese, the sole intent of their 12-point plan is to “prevent the crisis from deteriorating further or even spiralling out of control”.
Perhaps they haven’t noticed, but with part of its country occupied, millions displaced, and hundreds of thousands dead, wounded or subjected to war crimes on a daily level, the situation for Ukraine is pretty grim already.
Ukraine and a number of Western powers have rejected the Chinese proposal as unworkable.
For the former, any ceasefire that solidifies Russian control of Ukrainian territory that has been illegally seized is an invitation to award aggression, and also an opportunity for the battered Russian military to regroup.
Freezing the conflict now, rather than at Ukraine’s 1991 independence borders, risks allowing Russia to hold on to not only the gains of this conflict, but the Crimea invasion that preceded it.
As for the West, it is not difficult to see what China might be up to: trying to restore the credibility damaged by its recent spy balloon debacle and a public warning by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to refrain from supplying lethal military aid to Russia.
Beijing is no honest broker in this conflict and never has been.
As we enter the second year of Russia’s assault on the Free World, China should be reminded that while autocratic birds of a feather may wish to stick together, so will all of us wishing to see a free, peaceful and democratic Ukraine.