Macron's Hopes for Xi to Influence Russia on Ukraine Conflict Fall Short

Chinese President Xi Jinping showed no sign of changing his position over Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine after talks with French President Emmanuel Macron. Macron had hoped to push China to use its leverage with Russia to end the conflict, but Xi only called for peace talks to resume, taking into account the reasonable security concerns of all sides. Macron appealed to Xi to explicitly condemn Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and slammed Russia’s threat to station nuclear weapons in Belarus as “not compliant” with international nuclear agreements.