China, Russia, nail their colours to the mast

President Xi Jinping of China has wrapped up his state visit to Russia during which he made louder appeals for a negotiated settlement in the on-going war in Ukraine.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry official statement explained: “Beijing has no selfish motives on the Ukraine issue, and has not stood idly by, or sought profit for itself. What China has done boils down to one thing, that is, to promote peace talks.”

Russian President Vladimir agrees with Beijing’s twelve point plan to end the war. The provisions of the Chinese peace proposal, said President Putin after meeting with President Xi, “are consonant with the Russian stance and can be taken as a foundation for a peaceful settlement when they are ready for it in the West and in Kyiv”.

However, the US – the chief financier and advisor of Ukraine in Washington’s “proxy war” against Russia, has poured cold water over President Xi’s heightened efforts to help end the war.

The US National Security Council spokesperson, John Kirby, has claimed that from Washington’s point of view, “you cannot reasonably look at China as impartial in any way”.

Kirby complained that President Xi this week “saw fit to fly all the way to Moscow” whilst he has not spoken to the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky since the war broke out a year ago.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin countered as follows: “The US side claims that China’s stance isn’t impartial. But, is it impartial to continuously supply weapons to the battlefield? Is it impartial to constantly escalate the conflict? Is it impartial to allow the effects of the crisis to spill over globally?”

Wang further said: “We advise the American side to rethink its own stance on the Ukraine issue, turn away from the erroneous path of adding fuel to the fire, and stop shifting blame to China.”

Last month, both Moscow and Kyiv welcomed China’s proposed peace plan, which has been widely endorsed around the international community that is growing exasperated by the effects of the war on the global economy and food security.

The US is vehemently opposed to the Sino-Russian “no limits” bilateral relations. President Xi’s state visit to Russia was notably the first he has undertaken since being re-elected to a third term as President of the world’s biggest growing economy.

Among China’s proposed peace plan in Ukraine is the “respect for the sovereignty of all countries that must be must be strictly observed. “All countries, big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, are equal members of the international community,” read China’s proposals in part. The proposed peace deal also calls for the “abandoning of the Cold War mentality”, a point that clearly does not sit too well with Washington.

Finally, the proposed peace plan appeals for the immediate undertaking of dialogue to end the war. “Dialogue and negotiation are the only viable solution to the Ukraine crisis. China will continue to play a constructive role in this regard,” it reads.

British firebrand activist, geopolitical analyst, broadcaster and former Member of Parliament, George Galloway, had lambasted the US foreign policy stance on China. His criticism follows the recent comments by the Pentagon’s threats of “consequences” against China if the country forges ahead with closer ties to Russia. Galloway said he was left shocked by the “arrogance and stupidity” of the threats made by one superpower against another. The sense of exceptionalism you must feel to think that you are entitled to do that – to warn other countries about who they can be friends with” beggars belief.

He added: “In the last few years the policy of the United States and NATO has made Russia and China virtually one country, certainly militarily and economically,” he said, before adding: “The days when China could be ordered around by foreigners is over.”

Following three-day state visit to Russia, Presidents Xi and Putin reaffirmed their water-tight bilateral relations which serve as a frontline buffer in protection the global south against the Western-supported US hegemony.

In a joint communique, the two nuclear power leaders left no doubt about their common goal of standing up to the dictatorial unipolar world order led by the US to a more inclusive multilateral world order in line with the founding principles of the UN that are based on equal sovereignty of all countries – large or small.

Over the last year, Russia has grown reliant on China as a crucial import market as well as a key exporter of electronics among a long list of goods and services the West has restricted on Moscow as part of a barrage of unprecedented economic sanctions.

Russia has now undertaken to speed up assistance and coordination for the hordes of Chinese businesses to proliferate their market vacated by the Western enterprises since the war broke out.

Both leaders of Russia and China further resolved to drastically increase their trade in energy. Their communique read in part that “they will build a closer energy partnership, supporting companies from both countries in advancing cooperation projects in oil, gas, coal, electricity and nuclear energy”.

But methinks the most notable announcement for the new package of cooperation was Russian gas exports to the world’s most populous nation.

This includes the “implementation of the initiative to build the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline through the territory of Mongolia”.

This is made more important particularly in the wake of the bombing allegedly by Ukraine of the now-defunct Nord Stream 2 line that used to deliver gas into Europe.

The joint statement further mentioned increased bilateral cooperation in promoting “research and consultation” related to the planned “new China-Mongolia-Russia natural gas pipeline project”.

In my book, for as long as the US play what the ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula this week described as “the policeman of the world”, sensible nations that continue to be explicitly threatened by the so-called world’s only remaining superpower since the end of the Cold War would close ranks for their very survival.

The West, “even if you include Australia and New Zealand”, according to Galloway, make up a mere “13 percent of the world’s population”. In Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Gulf States, Middle East or the Caribbeans, the majority of the global community rejects America’s “rules-based world order” that is supported by the massively financed EU member-states.

As President Xi said on his departure from Moscow: “Together, we should push forward these changes that have not happened for 100 years.”