Posted Apr 1, 2022, 7:20 AM
A world order ” more just “. A month after the invasion of Ukraine, the head of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lavrov obtained from his Chinese ally a reaffirmation of the “unlimited” friendship of the two countries vis-à-vis the United States. China and Russia are “more determined” to develop bilateral relations and strengthen cooperation, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Wednesday after meeting with his Russian counterpart, who is in China for meetings on the Afghanistan.
While China has always refused to condemn Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, the two men condemned the “illegal and counterproductive” sanctions imposed on Moscow by “the United States and its satellites”. But while Russia can only rely on Chinese might to escape total economic isolation, no concrete measures of China’s support for Russia have been announced.
Moscow Speech
“We are living through a very serious stage in the history of international relations,” said Sergey Lavrov. I am convinced that at the end of this stage, the international situation will be much clearer and that we will be heading towards a multipolar, just, democratic world order”. “Our opposition to hegemony is limitless,” insisted a spokesman for Chinese diplomacy, Wang Wenbin.
Behind the calls for negotiation and the appearance of neutrality, Beijing is taking up Moscow’s discourse to hold the United States responsible for the war in Ukraine. Chinese state media blame the conflict on NATO “expansion” and Russia’s “legitimate” security concerns. “The United States is taking Ukraine as a pawn on its geopolitical chessboard, in order to contain Russia, to stifle Europe’s strategic independence and to consolidate a hegemony that is collapsing in Europe, can we read in the “People’s Daily”. The United States’ European allies are paying a tangible price with a Russian-Ukrainian conflict on their doorstep, the influx of refugees and the shortage of energy. »
Previously, the army newspaper “PLA Daily” had published a series on the “despicable role of the United States and the West in the Ukrainian crisis”. Conversely, pro-Ukrainian articles are heavily censored on Chinese social media.
“Beijing seems to think that blaming the United States is an opportunity to separate it from the European Union, which represents a misunderstanding of how European states approach both war and Russia,” writes James Palmer in the magazine “Foreign Policy”. Despite its repeated warnings against a ‘cold war mentality’, Beijing has a habit of treating small states as puppets of the big ones. China’s attempts to open up to the EU, especially to Germany, are likely to fail if that is the reasoning behind it. »
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