More than Ukraine at Stake

Why Zelensky is wrong to step on China’s toes

With an uncanny sense for maximum diplomatic damage, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has used his presence at this year’s Shangri-La Dialogue forum in Singapore (billed as “Asia’s premier defense summit”) to offend China. It is not hard to see why the president is frustrated and short-tempered. Zelensky is desperate for more than one reason: His military is under intense pressure from Russian forces on a line of contact stretching over more than 1,000 kilometers; his push to mobilize more Ukrainians for a war that is turning very sour is running into widespread open, if local, resistance as well as plenty of foot-dragging and evasion; and, last but not least, his attempt to stage a grand media event in Switzerland is turning into an embarrassment.

In less than two weeks and on Zelensky’s original initiative, Switzerland will host a large-scale international meeting at the Bürgenstock luxury hotel on a mountain overlooking Lake Lucerne. The official aim of the get-together is to promote peace in the current war between on, on one side, Russia, and, on the other, Ukraine with its Western supporters, i.e. NATO plus the EU (and then some – for instance, South Korea and Japan). Usually labeled a peace summit, the appellation makes no sense for the Bürgenstock meeting, since it excludes Russia: No conference can make or even prepare peace without all the warring parties in the room, except, perhaps, those totally defeated or heading for total defeat, which is obviously not the case with Moscow.