China has warned that the Ukraine war could spiral out of control, calling on Western countries to stop hyping up the conflict and linking it with the future of Taiwan. Foreign minister Qin Gang said that China would work with the international community to find a peaceful resolution to the war.
“It has been a year since the Ukraine crisis has escalated in an all-round war, and the situation has attracted international attention. The Chinese side is deeply concerned about the escalating conflict and potential for developments to spiral out of control,” he said.
“We urge relevant countries to immediately stop adding fuel to the fire, stop blaming China and stop provoking the situation by using references like ‘Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow’.”
US secretary of state Anthony Blinken and the European Union’s high representative for foreign policy Josep Borrell this week warned China against supplying lethal military equipment to Russia. Mr Blinken claimed to have information to suggest that China was considering such a move, a charge Beijing has denied.
China’s president Xi Jinping is expected to outline a proposal for a ceasefire and peace talks on Friday, the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. China has adopted what it characterises as a neutral position, declining to condemn the invasion and identifying Nato expansion as the root cause but declaring that each country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected.
China’s top diplomat Wang Yi was in Moscow on Tuesday after visits to Paris, Rome and Budapest, and talks with Mr Blinken and other foreign ministers at the Munich Security Conference. Before the Russian invasion last year Mr Xi and Vladimir Putin declared that there were no limits to the partnership between China and Russia.
Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said in Beijing on Tuesday that Mr Wang’s visit to Moscow was an opportunity “to promote bilateral relations along the direction set by the two heads of state”.
China’s foreign ministry on Tuesday published a concept paper on the Global Security Initiative announced by Mr Xi last year. The paper calls on other countries to promote the political settlement of conflicts like that in Ukraine through “candid dialogue” and affirms China’s support for a security governance structure centred on the United Nations. “Security is a right of all countries in the world, not the exclusive right of some countries. It should not be decided by some individual countries,” Mr Qin said at the paper’s launch.
The paper says China endorses the principle of indivisible security, which was adopted by the Organisation for Security Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 1999 and which has been invoked by Russia to argue against Nato expansion. “Any country, while pursuing its own security, should take into account the reasonable security concerns of others,” the paper says.
“We uphold the principle of indivisible security, advocating the indivisibility between individual security and common security, between traditional security and non-traditional security, between security rights and security obligations, and between security and development.”
