Is China beginning to distance itself from Russia?

The read-outs from Friday’s two-hour call between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping were so different, that you have to wonder whether the two leaders were on the same line. The White House version had Biden bluntly warning China of the consequences of providing assistance to Russia, while Beijing’s take presented Xi as a peacemaker

‘The Ukraine crisis is something we don’t want to see,’ Xi reportedly said. ‘Conflict and confrontation are not in the interests of anyone.’ The American read-out focussed narrowly on Ukraine, China’s on the broader relationship between the two countries. Global Times, the usually strident Communist party tabloid, described it as a ‘constructive interaction’.

This comes amid a subtle shift in the way Chinese state media is covering the conflict. For the first time there are reports of Russian military losses and the civilian toll of Russian strikes. The People’s Daily reported Ukrainian foreign ministry estimates that 14,000 Russian troops have been killed, while CGTN, the global arm of China’s state broadcaster, said in a tweet on Friday, ‘The dead bodies of people killed by Russian shelling lay covered across much of Ukraine.