U.S. President Joe Biden watched as China presented to the world a peace plan which China hopes will lead to a peaceful resolution of the year-long Ukraine crisis and which was immediately complimented by Russia and Ukraine, a former U.S. diplomat has said.
"The move by China embarrassed Biden, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken for spending the last year failing to come up with an American plan for ending the deadly conflict," wrote former U.S. diplomat Richard Grenell on Feb. 26 for California Globe.
Sullivan has responded to the Chinese plan by saying the Biden team is thinking "morning, noon, and night" about how to give Ukraine more military aid and hardware, said the U.S. Ambassador to Germany from 2018 to 2020.
For Blinken, the top U.S. diplomat and the man who outlines the priorities for American Foreign Service Officers, "it was another example of being side-lined," the former diplomat said.
"Veteran State Department employees were furious that a year has gone by without a U.S. plan for a peaceful solution," he wrote.
While the Biden team has armed Ukraine and spent tens of billions of dollars on aid and hardware to Ukraine, they have failed to directly seek a peace path, he said.
"China has outmaneuvered Biden and Blinken by offering at least a conceivable starting point to end the war," he said.