BEIJING: China’s Xi Jinping embarks on his first European tour as president Saturday, with the continent gripped by a diplomatic frenzy over Beijing ally Moscow’s absorption of Crimea from Ukraine.

The four-country trip comes shortly after China lodged a rare abstention on a Western-backed UN Security Council resolution condemning the weekend’s Crimea referendum, rather than vetoing it along with Russia.

While analysts say Xi is unlikely to speak out on Ukraine, they believe that China cannot remain a diplomatic bystander forever.

Xi has visited Russia, Africa, the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and Central Asia since becoming president a year ago.

He will first head to the Netherlands, followed by France, Germany and Belgium, along with the EU headquarters.

President Vladimir Putin’s move in Crimea has seen harsh criticism and sanctions by members of the Group of Seven (G7) countries.

Xi will hold summits with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, and will also meet Obama on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague on Monday and Tuesday.

The three Western leaders are members of the G7, intensely involved in dealing with the response to the Crimea crisis, and are likely to discuss it in The Hague.

But overseas trips by Chinese presidents and premiers are usually bland and highly scripted affairs, with an emphasis on the positive aspects of Beijing’s relations with the countries visited.

Beijing generally tries to avoid taking positions on situations that do not directly affect it, said Thomas Koenig, London-based Asia China programme coordinator at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“I don’t think China’s going to make any big statements or anything” on Ukraine, he told AFP.

“But in general I think the sense among the Europeans as well is that China  sooner or later will not be able to just be the non-interfering power” it has  been, he added.

Chinese vice foreign minister Li Baodong acknowledged the situation in Ukraine could come up in the meeting with Obama, but signalled Beijing’s likely position by reiterating its regular call for “calm and restraint”.   

“The visit will send out a strong signal to the entire European continent and the whole world that China values the role of Europe and we support European integration and we’re committed to deepening China-EU relations,” he said.

 Xi will have to walk a tricky line in balancing his bilateral visits to Germany and France, and talks with the leaders of the broader EU.

The 28-member EU is China’s biggest trading partner but ties have been strained at times, most recently last year by mutual dumping accusations over Chinese solar panels and European wine, in which interests of individual EU countries sometimes differed.

“The eternal problem with the European Union, of course, is that there’s  always going to be the supranational entity that is obviously advocating that  we should all be doing everything together and that we’re working as a  supranational entity rather than just being concerned with our national  interests,” Koenig said.

“But then, of course, national interests always win.”   

Xi’s visit to EU headquarters in Brussels on March 31 will be the first by  a Chinese president, according to the EU, whereas in the past Chinese premiers  have participated in Brussels summitry.

The visit to France, meanwhile, is partially to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the establishment in 1964 of diplomatic relations between Beijing and Paris.

Xi is scheduled to make a major speech in Paris highlighting historical bonds such as the experiences of Communist Party luminaries Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, who both studied in France.

There was speculation earlier this year that China might seek to have Xi visit the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin to highlight how Germany has confronted its Nazi past as a way to embarrass Japan, which Beijing regularly calls on to express contrition for its invasion of China and atrocities committed during World War II.

But Chinese vice commerce minister Wang Chao denied that. “The issue… did not come up during our preparations for this visit,” he said.–AFP