Source: The Manila Times    Published: 2022-03-18

CHINA is encouraging European countries to establish an indivisible, sustainable, effective and balanced security mechanism for different diplomatic occasions in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis.

Chinese analysts say that since the ongoing conflict has damaged the continent's security, nations there must realize that the United States was manipulating their security situation and benefiting from it, while the European Union, Russia and Ukraine have paid a heavy price for it.

Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, said at a Security Council briefing by the head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe earlier this week that the crisis raised questions on how to maintain global stability and focus more on the real pathway to universal security and common development.

"The world is indivisible, and security is indivisible. In the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, the important principle of indivisible security was first established. This principle carries special significance under the current circumstances," he said.

Yang Jiechi, China's top diplomat, made similar remarks during his meeting with US National Security Adviser Jack Sullivan in Rome on Monday.

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"We should take a long-term perspective to actively promote common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable views of security, based on the principle of indivisible security, to seek [the] construction of balanced, effective and sustainable security mechanism," Yang said.

In his virtual meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on March 8, Chinese President Xi Jinping said "China supports France and Germany in promoting a balanced, effective and sustainable European security framework for the interests and lasting security of Europe, and by upholding its strategic autonomy."

"China will be pleased to see equal-footed dialogue among the EU, Russia, the United States and NATO," he added, using the acronym of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The calls for security show that China — widely seen in the West as a warm Moscow ally — has found that the root cause of the conflict is the existing security mechanism that the US established in Europe and US-led NATO's problematic domination of it, according to analysts.

The current crisis just proves that this security mechanism makes everyone in Europe insecure, they said.

Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at the Renmin University of China, told Beijing-run Global Times on Tuesday that "Europeans have realized that the security of Europe is not in the hands of Europeans."

"The eastward expansion of NATO is dominated by the US, and such view of security is based on the sacrifice of Russia's security. In other words, the absolute security of the West makes Russia absolutely insecure. So Russia decided to fight back, and the ongoing crisis brings refugees and a series of problems to Europe in the fields of economy and energy," he said.

"Who's the biggest winner? It's the US. Europeans need to pay the US military industrial companies for weapons. US military presence is getting more legitimate in the continent, and without resolving Russia's security concerns, the EU will get increasingly insecure, and then the US military industrial giants will get more clients again."

A Beijing-based expert on international relations who spoke on condition of anonymity said, "Some might believe that Russia is too aggressive, so Europe needs the protection of the US. But the fact is that with the so-called protection, Europe is getting increasingly insecure."

The expert said Russia was the one receiving NATO pressure, not the one threatening the West. [The] EU has complementarities with Russia. [Without] the US-led NATO, maybe the EU and Russia can form a community of [a] shared future, and Russia wouldn't even need to spend that much money on defense, which is a win-win situation for both the EU and Russia, the expert added.