China steps up to plate as peace broker

Last month, China released a 12-point proposal for ending the Ukraine crisis, calling for addressing both the symptoms and root causes of the crisis and stressing the necessity to end the conflict through dialogue and negotiation. China's impartial and principled position has won wide recognition from the world community.

And with Beijing intensifying its efforts to broker peace in Ukraine, it has become apparent that many European leaders have a growing interest in coordinating their stance with China with the view to resolving the Ukraine crisis.

In a news conference in Brussels on Friday following a meeting of the European Council, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called China a global actor and urged the world to listen to China's voice so as to find a way out of the crisis in Ukraine. According to media reports, Sanchez has accepted an invitation from President Xi Jinping to pay a state visit to China later this week.