China is making its move in Ukraine, and the US has no chance of matching it – ABC News

China has swooped.

After watching the war with great interest for 14 months, and repeatedly demonstrating support and friendship for Russia's Vladimir Putin, China's President Xi Jinping has made his move.

It was a magnificent sunny spring morning in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, on April 26 when Xi deigned to speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Since the war began 15 months ago, Xi has remained one of the few major world leaders not to have bothered to have a conversation with Zelenskyy, whose country is fighting to survive under attack from Russia.

Instead, he has engaged in photo opportunities with Putin, even when it was clear to the world that Russia was relentlessly hitting residential buildings in Ukraine with missiles and drones.

Indeed, Xi and Putin held a meeting at the Beijing Olympics three weeks before Putin's decision to invade Ukraine in February last year.

It defies believability that, as Moscow was amassing soldiers along the Ukraine border, the two men would not have discussed Putin's by-then well-developed plan to invade his neighbour.

So for all these reasons the phone call on April 26 is hugely significant.

It's clear from the content of the conversation released afterwards by both sides that Xihas offered something that he knows the United States cannot offer.

Based on statements by both sides, the conversation was in two parts.

The first part was typical of world leaders who have had little contact with each other some diplomatic niceties and an expression by both sides that they wanted to have a closer bilateral relationship.

But the real significance of the call came in something Xi said towards the end.

He mentioned, almost as if in passing, that he wanted to send a diplomatic envoy to both Kyiv and Moscow to try to bring an end to the war.

And it was not just any envoy. It was China's former ambassador to Moscow, Li Hui. Clearly, Li would have significant contacts in the Kremlin which he can bring to any peace talks with Ukraine's leadership.

And as quickly as the idea was raised by Xi it was accepted by Zelenskyy.

Xi would have known that he was offering something that the US simply cannot offer. Washington would be unable to deliver Putin to a negotiating table, albeit an indirect one of shuttle diplomacy.

One senior US official gave an interesting response to the call. Washington's ambassador to Beijing, Nicholas Burns, stated: "What we need to see from China, is to push Russia to withdraw its troops, so that Ukraine can have all of its territory back and can be fully sovereign again in all aspects of that word. "

One of the interesting aspects of that statement is that it is a senior US official endorsing China playing the role of mediator.

Recently, whenXi brokered a peace agreement of sorts between Saudi Arabia and Iran, he would have known as with the Ukraine envoy offer that he was offering something that the US cannot offer. Washington could deliver Riyadh to a negotiating table but it certainly could not deliver Tehran.

The rapidly changing geopolitical world has been shown starkly by the war in Ukraine. Russia is one of China's closest allies and Iran is one of Russia's closest allies.Xi is using his newly consolidated arc of influence.

Iran is as complicit in the killing of civilians in Ukraineas is Russia. The Shahid drones, which Iran is enthusiastically providing to Russia, are regularly used to fly into residential buildings, loaded with explosives.

In this war, Russia is not the only country that could be found guilty of war crimes. Iran could,too.

When Iranian customs officers sign the forms for their shiploads of drones to go to Russia, they know exactly what those drones are off to do.

Iran cannot satisfy quickly enough Russia's voracious demand for these high-tech birds of death. So much so that Moscow has recently earmarked $US6 billion ($8.9 billion) to manufacture its own drones to top up those coming from Iran.

It's clear from being here that Ukraine has become very well armed in recent months. The majority of the promised military support from NATO countries has arrived.

According to NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg, about 97 per cent of what has been promised has arrived.

Part of the new-look Ukrainian fighting machine is 230 of the best tanks available and 1,550 infantry fighting vehicles. And on top of all that, Ukraine now has one of the best air-defence systems in the world, forged by 15 months' experience and backed up by state-of-the-art technology such as the US-made Patriot air-defence system.

On top of that,NATO and the US are running a sophisticated satellite-based systemfrom neighbouring Poland that alerts Ukraine the moment Russian MiG jets are loaded with missiles and preparing to take off from Russia or Belarus.

This means that, on some occasions, Ukraine's air-defence systems have up to an hour's notice of likely incoming fire of missiles and drones.

My own assessment is that apart from wanting to replace Washington as the international deal-maker, China is realising that Russia is in deepening military trouble and wants to help its ally.

It's not out of the question that Putin may have asked Xi to try to bring the parties to a table given hisproblems, but neither China nor Russia is saying that.

But what is indisputable is that China is making its move regarding Ukraine.

And as it does so, Beijing has two agendas: the first is to try to eclipse the US. The second is to try to help Russia.

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China is making its move in Ukraine, and the US has no chance of matching it - ABC News