Bush China Foundation Policy Brief: Report on U.S.-China Strategic Policy Dialogue on Ukraine

Over two months after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, the war’s outcomes and Russia’s endgame remain unclear. In response to the Russian aggression, the United States, along with its allies and partners, provided security and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine and imposed sweeping financial sanctions on Russia’s economy, while working diplomatically to deescalate tensions. China abstained from voting on a United Nations Security Council resolution that condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and has portrayed itself as a neutral party in the conflict, although its relationship with Russia has grown increasingly close in recent years. Despite different perceptions of the root causes of the war and approaches to lowering tensions, the United States and China have a shared interest in ending the assault on the Ukrainian people and in Ukraine and Russia reaching a peace agreement. 

To that end, the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations partnered with Peking University’s Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding to bring together academics and former diplomats from the United States and China for a closed-door discussion on Russia’s war in Ukraine. The dialogue session was the third round of the track 2 U.S.-China Strategic Policy Dialogue series, which seeks to facilitate action-focused exchanges between the two countries and was launched in May of last year.