China’s balancing act calling ” the two parts “ to dialogue will not have lasted long. Thursday, February 24, during a telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, Wang Yi, the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs, indicated that, even if Beijing “ has always respected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, we have also seen that the Ukrainian question has its own unique and complicated history”. He added : “ We understand Russia’s legitimate security concerns. » On the same day, during his daily press conference, his spokesperson, Hua Chunying, systematically refused to talk about“invasion”. For China – which is going to evacuate its nationals from Ukraine – this is a “special military operation”an official Russian term taken up by the Chinese media.
As of Wednesday, Hua Chunying had clearly blamed the United States for the Ukrainian crisis. “A key question here is [de savoir] what role played the United States, the culprit of the current tensions around Ukraine. If someone continues to add fuel to the fire by accusing others of not doing everything to put out the fire, such behavior is clearly irresponsible and immoral,” she had indicated.
Echoing the Kremlin’s rhetoric, Hua Chunying clarified: “When the United States expands NATO eastward five times to Russia’s doorstep and deploys strategic and offensive weapons despite assurances to Russia, have they considered the consequences of a large country with its back to the wall? »
“NATO has become an offensive alliance”
The issue of territorial integrity is still considered very sensitive in China, but Hua Chunying challenged the white knight posture of the United States and launched into a long anti-American diatribe. ” Does the United States respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries when fomenting color revolutions and intervening in their internal affairs around the world? We would like the United States to take these issues seriously and abandon its double standards. »
Unsurprisingly, Beijing had also criticized the first sanctions taken by the West against Russia. “Our position is that sanctions are never an effective measure to solve problems. We constantly oppose all unlawful unilateral sanctions,” added the spokeswoman.
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