Editor's note: Abhishek G Bhaya is a senior international affairs commentator. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

We are living in an increasingly geopolitically polarized world. The Russia-Ukraine conflict has further amplified this division. At a time when the U.S.-led West repeatedly proclaims that "either you are with us or against us," not exactly using the same words always but also through policy measures reflecting the same core principle, the space for those who publicly hold contrarian views on geopolitics that do not toe the Western line is constantly shrinking.

So, it was encouraging to see the New York-headquartered Bloomberg media agency publishing an interview of the United Nations' top representative in Beijing last month explaining why China could make the most fitting peacemaker and a mediator in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. 

"I see China as a country which can play an important role in mediating the crisis. China has the ability, it has the bandwidth. It has the sensitivity. It has the understanding of the complexity of the geopolitics," Siddharth Chatterjee, the UN's Resident Coordinator in China, told Bloomberg in that interview.

"To me, this is China's Nobel Prize moment. A real Nobel Prize moment," he reiterated, adding that Chinese President Xi Jinping has an opportunity to create history by pushing for a successful end to the war.

Predictably his remarks were seen as "controversial" in certain power corridors and drew subtle, yet fierce, criticism with some seeing it as a formal support for China's candidature for the international award.

Never to mince his words, Chatterjee later issued a response to his critics, the text of which was obtained by CGTN through confidential sources, where he cited the core message of the preamble of the UN Charter to draw home his point. The erudite UN official also clarified that his "Nobel Prize moment" remarks were to be understood metaphorically, and not to be taken literally.

"In my interview with Bloomberg on 25 March 2022, I discussed the impact of the war on our quest for sustainable development, including in China, along with the ongoing humanitarian response, and the need to return to the path of diplomacy and peace. I recalled that the UN Secretary-General is in touch with several countries, including China, France, Germany, India, Israel and Turkey, on mediation efforts to bring an end to this war," noted Chatterjee.

"I characterized China's possible role as a mediator in the Russia-Ukraine war as a 'Nobel Peace Prize moment' as a metaphor. This statement was not intended as a formal expression of candidature, but simply to emphasize the moral imperative we all feel to pursue any possible avenue for peace, regardless of geopolitics, mandates and roles, and simply because of our shared humanity," he elucidated.

Peace in 'China's interest'

As a UN staff member and as a former military veteran, Chatterjee has personally seen senseless violence and brutality in many of the conflict-ridden areas of the world where he served, in Africa, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and therefore he understands the cost of war only too well.

"People are dying in Ukraine, so now is not the time for words alone. It is time to take action and seize every opportunity to end this war. This was the sense of my answers in the interview," the UN official added.

In the Bloomberg interview, Chatterjee argued that an immediate end to the conflict serves "China's interest" as the success of Beijing's multilateral development plans such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Global Development Initiative (GDI) hinges on global peace and development.

To that extent, he also implored both China and the U.S. – the two largest economies in the world – to improve ties and work towards resolving their own conflicts including the trade war, as reported by Bloomberg. "This is perhaps a moment even more that we need the leadership of China of the United States to come together and look at how do we find solutions to some of these intractable problems," he said. "No problem is impossible to overcome."

'Saving humanity from hell'

In his subsequent response to critics, the senior UN official augmented his views in support of peace and end to violence by invoking the opening words from the preamble of the UN Charter: "We, the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war."

In following the purposes and principles of the Charter, the UN is doing everything in its power to support people, whose lives have been overturned by wars and conflicts all over the world, including in Ukraine, he emphasized.

"The war has led to the senseless loss of thousands of lives, and the displacement of millions of people, mainly women and children. The war has also led to the systematic destruction of essential infrastructure, and skyrocketing food and energy prices worldwide, threatening to reverse our progress on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”

Chatterjee concluded his response with a quotation by former UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold: "The UN was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell." Those thoughts, Chatterjee contended, remained true today in the face of the horror in Ukraine and other conflict-ridden parts of the world.

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