China on Monday called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to avoid “double standards” after it issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges.
“The ICC should take an objective and impartial stance, respect the legal immunity of heads of state… and avoid politicization and double standards,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, few hours before the start of the mandate of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. State visit to Russia.
The Hague-based International Criminal Court has accused Putin of being personally responsible for the abduction of thousands of children from Ukraine. Governments that recognize the court’s jurisdiction will thus be forced to arrest Putin if he visits his country.
Putin has yet to comment on the announcement, but the Kremlin has rejected the move as “shocking and unacceptable.”
Asked whether the arrest warrant against Putin or his lightning trip to the city of Mariupol will affect Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow, which begins today, the spokesman limited himself to responding that Beijing “has always defended dialogue and negotiations to resolve the Ukrainian crisis”. “.
“The international community should play a constructive role in reaching a peaceful agreement and do more to promote peace and negotiations,” he added.
According to Wang, relations between Beijing and Moscow “promote the democratization of international relations and aim at building a multipolar world.”
Xi arrives in Russia today to meet Putin to discuss, among other things, tensions with the West, especially the United States, and the war in Ukraine.
In a peace plan, proposed at the end of February, Beijing stressed the importance of “respecting the sovereignty of all countries”, in reference to Ukraine, but also called for an end to the “Cold War mentality”, in implicit criticism. to NATO enlargement. China has also called for an end to Western sanctions on Russia.
The proposal did not satisfy either party or the West, but it cast Xi in the role of mediator, a role he had recently played successfully between two seemingly irreconcilable countries, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
China was one of the countries that abstained from voting on a resolution condemning the Russian invasion at the UN Assembly.
The Chinese leader arrives in Moscow a day after Putin visited Ukraine for the first time – specifically the port of Mariupol (Sea of Azov), in the Donetsk region – since the start of the invasion, in February 2022.
Source: TSF
