Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng has said globalization should not be “weaponized” and military-bloc politics must be “rejected.” The comments come a day after US President Joe Biden warned his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, that there would be “consequences” if China supported Russia’s military action in Ukraine.
Speaking at the Fourth International Forum on Security and Strategy in Beijing on Saturday, the official agreed with Moscow’s assessment that NATO’s unchecked expansion in Eastern Europe and the failure to address Russia’s national security concerns had paved the way for the current crisis. He said a simple “commitment of no eastward expansion could have easily ended the crisis and stopped the suffering.”
“Instead, one chose to fan the flames at a safe distance, watching its own arms dealers, bankers, and oil tycoons make a fortune out of the war, while leaving the people of a small country with the wounds of war that would take years to heal,” he said.
NATO’s pursuit of “absolute security” leads instead to “absolute non-security,” Le added.
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