China¡¯s top leader, Xi Jinping, and President Luiz In¨¢cio Lula da Silva of Brazil, meeting in Beijing and presenting themselves as potential mediators for the war in Ukraine, declared Friday that negotiation was ¡°the only viable way out of the crisis¡± there.

In a joint statement, Xi and Lula avoided the words ¡°invasion¡± or ¡°war¡± and offered few specifics about how to bring Russia or Ukraine to the table after more than a year of war.

But Lula said he supported China¡¯s framework for ending the war in Ukraine, which does not call for Russia to withdraw its troops. He also called for China¡¯s territorial integrity to be respected with regards to Taiwan, a similar stance to the one President Emmanuel Macron of France took last weekend after he traveled to China to meet with Xi.