China harangues US over anti-Russia stance
February 27, 2015, 8:34 am

File Photo: US President Barack Obama with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin [PPIO]

The Ukraine crisis is being fueled by games played by the US and the European Union, said a Chinese diplomat on Thursday.

“The United States is unwilling to see its presence in any part of the world being weakened, but the fact is its resources are limited, and it will be to some extent a hard work to sustain its influence in external affairs, ” Chinese envoy to Belgium Qu Xing told state news agency Xinhua.

“There were internal and external reasons for the Ukraine crisis. Originally, the issue stemmed from Ukraine’s internal problems, but it now was not a simple internal matter. Without external intervention from different powers, the Ukrainian problem would not develop into the serious crisis as it be,” Qu said.

China has, earlier, criticized Western sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine crisis.

Qu notes that the eastern and western parts of Ukraine had differing cultural and ethnic traditions historically and that Russian-speaking regions had held long close ties with Moscow.

In what was a clear backing for Russian interests in the region, the Chinese envoy said Moscow is feeling “anxious that the West may squeeze its geographical space by extending influence in eastern European countries including Ukraine”.

Ukraine could be a warning for most countries in the world, says the Chinese ambassador.

“The major powers need to seek a win-win situation rather than zero-sum security,” Qu said.

Notwithstanding Washington’s military prowess, the US is still insecure, consistently increasing its sphere of influence, including moves to enhance the global distribution of ballistic missile defense systems.

The envoy alluded to Washington’s national security review system for foreign investors’ mergers and acquisition activities in the States. But its definition of “national security” was not clear or transparent enough, Qu alleged.

The US “is highly sensitive to its own security, while ignoring other countries’ basic security needs and concerns”, he added.

“The West should abandon the zero-sum mentality, and take the real security concerns of Russia into consideration,” said Qu.

With the EU’s geographical proximity to Ukraine and its energy dependence on Russia, the European Union is more pragmatic than the US over the Ukraine issue, he said.

The lack of US participation in the Minsk agreement, on the one hand, raised the negotiation leverage for EU partners but left room for maneuver.

“Even though a latest ceasefire agreement had been achieved, it is still possible for the Western parties to change the original decisions in the future for the excuse that the United States was not involved in the negotiations,” he said.

The United States and some leaders in Europe have, this week, threatened to impose tougher sanctions against Moscow.

Additionally, the US is considering arming the Ukrainian military.

Source: Agencies