The Vatican announced Tuesday that Pope Francis' envoy to Ukraine for peace, Cardinal Matteo Zupi, will visit Beijing this week.

He stated that the visit, which lasts from Wednesday until Friday, "represents an additional step within the framework of a mission that the Pope wanted to support humanitarian initiatives and search for ways that could lead to a just peace."

The statement did not mention the war in Ukraine.
The 86-year-old Pope asked Zoppi, head of the Italian Episcopal Conference, in May to lead a peace mission seeking to stop the war.

The cardinal went to Kiev in June, where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Three weeks later, he went to Moscow, where he met with the Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children's Affairs, Maria Lvova Belova, who is wanted by the International Court of Human Rights on charges of illegally transporting Ukrainian children to Russia.

In July, Zoby met with US President Joe Biden, with whom he discussed the Vatican's humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.

Matteo Zoppi (67 years old) was elected president of the Italian Episcopal Conference last year, and belongs to the Catholic Society of Sant'Egidio, which specializes in diplomacy and peace efforts.

China is a major international ally of Russia, but at the same time it has intensified its diplomatic activity with Ukraine and avoided providing full military support to Moscow.

The Pope repeatedly calls for peace in Ukraine, although he attracted criticism in the first months of the Russian invasion in February 2022 for avoiding describing Moscow as the aggressor.