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Good video, but honestly, yes, it is ambiguous. Pro-peace, pro-territorial integrity are meaningful values, but almost nothing at all is being stated specifically about this conflict. What does China see as the path to those goals? I suspect that there’s plenty of internal party disagreement and ongoing analysis holding up a firm decision.
If anyone knows of an English source with more info than this video, though, I would love to see it. Maybe there’s more clarity to China’s stance than I’ve seen so far.
I think the statements right after that about NATO expansion, the line “have all parties respected the charter?”, and pointing out that the majority of the world’s population lives in countries that don’t condemn Russia make it pretty clear.
It’s still missing the most important piece of information: what does China think should actually be done to resolve the conflict? We can infer, but no course of action is directly stated.
https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjdt_665385/wshd_665389/202203/t20220308_10649559.html
FM Wang Yi was asked about this a few days ago by Reuters. I know it’s not super specific, but I hope it answers your question.
I think in order to be consistent China’s position is mostly going to be that NATO expansion was an existential threat therefore Russia’s war is more defensive than anything. She mentions the foreign policy experts general consensus. This is about the most average take.
China wants peaceful coexistence and that is explicitly a call for no aggression and no existential threats.
Their position is that the US/NATO violated not only the UN charter but also China’s own universal principles of peace, therefore they realy have no justification for this war and Russia is acting mostly as a rational consequence of the known consensus i.e NATO expansion was an existential threat.
People forget that China can’t simply role play as a western leftist and try to cry about both sides all the time. They are going to pick and chose their allies. If there is enough evidence to say one side was being far more unreasonable and aggressive than the other they are going to use that rethoric and in this case China doesn’t realy care about internal politics of foreign countries, they don’t care that Putin is a right winger.
“The west’s condemnation of Russia is not universal” Is very clear imo.
I get all of that, and fundamentally agree with both the broad strokes and the details of that analysis. And I respect China’s principled neutrality. I just want to know what they see as the path to resolving that, and I haven’t seen it yet. Not saying they don’t have one, though.
I see, well other than diplomatic speeches there is not much they can do about it, they are helping Russia survive the sanctions and they’ll probably try to hold Putin back before if he decides to start WW3.
You see there is a theory that he waited for the games to end as a sign of respect/deal already.
If there is any fodder they can use e.g the bio research labs or future US tied mercs/terrorists in Ukraine they’ll keep an eye out to use that as further proof against the US.
And they are going to jump on the opportunity to be involved in the peace negotiations if necessary. Ukraine is staling like idiots though so not much they can do.
Senior US diplomats including George Kennan and Henry Kissinger had warned against the dangerous consequences.
:heartbreaking:
Kissenger still alive :angery:
