State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (right) meets with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Rome, Oct 31, 2021. (PHOTO / XINHUA)
Comparing the two sides' respective briefings on the exchange of views between Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken by telephone on Saturday, it is clear which side is promoting a peaceful solution to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and which side is fanning the flames.
By saying that the world is "watching to see which nations stand up for the basic principles of freedom, self-determination and sovereignty", Blinken tried to claim the moral high ground to pressure China to join the US-led sanctions against Russia.
However, Wang highlighted the reality gap between the actions of the US and its faith in the rightness of its moral absolutism when he said that China supports all efforts conducive to de-escalation and political settlement of the situation, while opposing any moves which are adverse to promoting a diplomatic solution and which add fuel to the flames.
The Ukraine issue is complicated, and it does not boil down to Washington's simplistic portrayals of good and evil. The crisis is not just about the respective security guarantees sought by Ukraine and Russia, and the need for a balanced, effective and robust European security mechanism. It is also about the inability of the US and its allies to envision a future in which they are not diminished, which results in their pathological insistence on aggravating the fault lines that have served them so well in the past.
Although both Washington and Beijing call for an end to the war in Ukraine, Washington is selling the crisis as a simple right and wrong proposition in which it is on the side of "right". It is exploiting the Ukraine conflict as a proxy war with the aim of both weakening Russia and driving a wedge between Europe and Russia. Forcing the European Union to become more reliant on the US for security and energy is predicated on greater support for its endeavors targeting other countries.
That is why Washington has been continually stoking the escalation of tensions between Ukraine and Russia, instead of working in good faith to prevent what was an avoidable war.
Washington's attempts to rally nations with its call to uphold "freedom, self-determination and sovereignty" is just pious claptrap. To Washington these are nothing but favors that it bestows or withholds according to its whims. The "high price" that Russia is having to pay is for not going cap in hand to the US after the break-up of the Soviet Union.
As ever, Washington's intransigent insistence on playing its profit-seeking games has resulted in an epicentered humanitarian crisis and broader suffering from the extended shock waves of its actions.
That the US reportedly still spends about $700 million a day buying Russian oil and gas is an ironic indictment of its willful abuse of noblesse oblige.
Wang's call for the US and its allies to face up to the frictions and problems accumulated over the years and to engage in dialogue with Russia to ease their mutual mistrust points the way to realizing a lasting peace mechanism in Europe that can end the otherwise unrelenting arms race and risky brinkmanship.