The visit of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba to China comes as Ukraine looks to shore up support from China in finding a peaceful solution to the conflict with Russia after the country's "primary backer" Joe Biden dropped out of the U.S. presidential election race, a political analyst said Thursday.
Kuleba on Friday wrapped up a four-day visit to China, during which he held talks with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in the southern city of Guangzhou, with this being the highest-level Ukrainian diplomatic mission to China since the onset of the conflict in 2022.
Joseph Gregory Mahoney, a politics and international relations professor at East China Normal University, pointed to the significant timing of the visit which comes after President Biden announced he would not stand for re-election. Hours after Biden's withdrawal was made public, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed gratitude for the U.S. leader's strong support in a social media post.
Biden's move injects greater uncertainty into the ongoing conflict, with many analysts expecting Ukraine will not enjoy the same level of U.S. support should former president Donald Trump return to office.
"I think in terms of the timing, certainly Ukraine understands that its primary backer, Joe Biden, is pulling out of the U.S. presidential race. And even if Biden had won in November, it was likely the U.S. was going to pivot away from Ukraine," he said in an interview with th China Global Television Network (CGTN).
As the conflict continues with no end in sight on the battlefield, Mahoney said that finding a solution through other means must now be the focus.
"If we understand this as a proxy war between Russia and the United States, we haven't seen much change in the lines, neither the U.S. nor Russia are really pressing their full power and ability right now in Ukraine and so it's been the case that sooner or later we were going to have to get to a political and diplomatic solution," he said.
Mahoney noted the belief shared by many analysts that Biden had invested so much political capital in the Russia-Ukraine conflict that he was unable to "back away" from the issue before November's election.
However, with current Vice President Kamala Harris now preparing to lead the Democrats into the polls, Ukraine may doubt whether it can receive the same military aid and political backing from the U.S., with the country now turning to China in the hope of resolving the conflict.
"With Harris now taking the helm for the Democrats, it's not clear that she has to carry that baggage as she moves forward, so it was prudent for Ukraine to go ahead and start trying to find a solution, and certainly China would be very instrumental in helping to find that," said Mahoney.
Ukraine turns to China amid fears US support could diminish after Biden withdrawal: analyst
