It seems (to me) to be a soft demand outwardly as China is both trying to avoid the US and western nations being able to paint them as just being pro-Russia instead of neutral (and trying to find a way to maybe be the ones to bring peace). While also still not just letting it slide. Which if Ukraine does stupidly make worse in their reply, will only help move basically all of Asia away due to calling them all stupid because of race. Which also gives the de-Nazification argument for Russia starting the special operation a boost.
I like how they paint China as “earning money on the conflict,” like the military industrial complex of the US and other NATO nations are actually just giving shit to Ukraine without strings attached to every single bit. The west are the ones that thought they would be made richer, and that putting so many restrictions on Russia would also bring China down completely. So far Ukraine has only won over the libs and moderate conservatives because they are anti-Russia no matter what (similar to the Dems “vote blue no matter who” headspace). They also were successful in getting Putin to okay the operation due to further and aggressively trying to join NATO.