EU Council President Charles Michel criticized China’s decision to boycott a Ukraine peace conference to be held in Switzerland in the coming days.
“It is disappointing that China will not attend,” Michel said on Thursday on the sidelines of the meeting of the leaders of the seven advanced industrialized democracies in southern Italy.
China said late last month that it would not participate in the Ukraine peace conference that Switzerland is organizing. Beijing pointed to a clear gap between the organization of the conference and China’s requirements, as well as the general expectations of the international community, which made China’s participation difficult, said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning.
Around 40 heads of state and government, along with delegations from 90 countries and organizations, are expected to take part in the summit taking place over the weekend at the Bürgenstock Resort on Lake Lucerne.
Russia was not invited and considered the event Western propaganda.
The aim of the summit is to prepare the ground for a subsequent peace summit with Russian participation. It will also discuss food safety and nuclear safety.
On Thursday, the Swiss National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) reported attacks on state websites ahead of the summit.
Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks hit government websites and organizations linked to the summit, flooding them with requests.
“The attacks were expected and are presumed to be related to the summit. They resulted in minor disruptions that were within the specified tolerance. The operation of affected units was not significantly affected,” the NCSC said in a statement.
