The White House is now worried that China’s peace plan may outflank it. An “unnamed official” in Biden’s administration, according to Bloomberg News today, describes a “sense of unease” in the White House over the peremptory dismissal, by top officials, of the 12-point Chinese plan, released on Feb. 24. Most recently, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby warned China’s President Xi, just prior to his Moscow summit with President Putin, that any agreement that he secured with Putin for a path to peace, the US was rejecting ahead of time.
It seems, according to Bloomberg’s source, that Washington now fears it has been “backed into a corner,” as it has created the perception that the US is against peace. Now, Beijing can exploit that perception, driving countries that are war-weary away from America’s side. Bloomberg cites Bonny Lin, a fellow at CSIS: “China will likely ramp up messaging that the US is opposed to a ceasefire, that the US is opposed to the end of the war.”
