China has called for calm after Vladimir Putin’s indirect nuclear threat. Is Beijing distancing itself from Moscow? Both are not allies, according to a spokesman.
Beijing/New York/Munich – In the Ukraine conflict*, China is stepping away from Russia and Vladimir Putin. China and Russia are “strategic partners” but not “allies,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said in Beijing on Monday. China decides its stance and policies on a case-by-case basis. “All sides should remain calm, show restraint and avoid further escalation,” Wang said in response to Putin’s raising the alert on Russia’s deterrent weapons.
This is understood around the world as a threat of a nuclear strike, even if Putin did not expressly speak of nuclear weapons. China * supports all efforts for relaxation and a peaceful political solution, said Wang.
Ukraine conflict: will China drop Putin?
This is all the more remarkable given that Wang and his colleagues in the Foreign Ministry have so far made more bold statements in the conflict. Wang’s colleague Hua Chunying repeatedly railed against the role played by the USA and even doubted whether the Russian invasion of Ukraine was really an “invasion”*. So far, China’s delegation headed by UN Ambassador Zhang Jun in New York has been trying to make diplomatic statements. On Friday evening, China abstained from the UN Security Council resolution critical of Russia – and did not veto it together with Russia.
In the end, China could look primarily to its own interests. The more Russia comes under pressure in Ukraine, and the more Putin is ostracized by what Beijing sees as surprisingly close-knit West, the more doubts the government is likely to have about any ties to Moscow. An alliance with a marginalized loser brings little benefit. Head of state Xi Jinping* does not comment publicly, but should carefully consider what he is doing. At the beginning of the Olympic Games, Xi had shown himself demonstratively together with Vladimir Putin*.
In general, Beijing also does not appreciate any nuclear weapons in its vicinity. For decades, China has not succeeded in dissuading North Korea, which is also considered an “ally of Beijing”, from its nuclear course. Despite all the declarations of brotherhood with Pyongyang, a nuclear-weapon-free Korean peninsula is one of Beijing’s foreign policy goals. But even China is failing due to the tenacity of North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un. Beijing can’t really use Russia threatening nuclear weapons.
If Russian rockets can also reach cities like Essen, Dortmund or Cologne* ruhr24.de* looked at in an article.
China: Diplomacy ends on human rights
However, there are also limits to Beijing’s neutrality at the United Nations. The representative of Beijing in the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva voted on Monday against starting an urgent debate on the Ukraine crisis – together with Russia itself, as well as Eritrea, Cuba and Venezuela. It is a list of states that are more conspicuous for violating human rights than for protecting them. India and 12 other countries abstained. But since 29 members voted in favour, the debate will go ahead.
The representative of Ukraine, Yevheniya Filipenko, had emphasized in her motion that Russia was deliberately attacking civilian targets such as kindergartens and medical facilities during its advance. “These files could become war crimes,” Filipenko said. According to Ukrainian sources, more than 350 civilians have been killed so far, including 16 children. In its rejection of the debate, Russia referred to the years of suffering of the Russian-speaking population in the Ukrainian Donbass region.
China always reacts very thinly to criticism of its handling of human rights*. From the Western point of view, the fact that it could not bring itself to abstain, at least on this issue, and that it has become Russia’s accomplice out of its own sensitivity, is an unpleasant signal from a Western perspective. (ck/dpa) *Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
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