Monday, June 27, 2022

China Steps Up Anti-NATO Rhetoric Ahead Of Madrid Summit

China steps up anti-NATO rhetoric ahead of Madrid summit, citing ‘Cold War’ ethos
AMN



China is stepping up anti-NATO rhetoric ahead of the military alliance’s summit next week, calling it a “product of the Cold War” dominated by the United States, while an envoy of leader Xi Jinping is hoping to convince European leaders the country doesn’t back the Russian invasion of Ukraine, analysts said.

“NATO is a product of the Cold War and the world’s biggest military alliance dominated by the U.S.,” foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told journalists in Beijing on June 23, three days ahead of the summit in Madrid.


“It is a tool for the US to maintain its hegemony and influence Europe’s security landscape [which] is clearly against the trend of our times,” he said in comments reported in the English edition of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) newspaper, the People’s Daily.

Wang cast doubt on NATO’s core purpose as a defensive organization, saying it had “willfully waged wars against sovereign countries that left a large number of civilians dead and tens of millions displaced.”

“NATO has already disrupted stability in Europe. It should not try to do the same to the Asia-Pacific and the whole world,” Wang said.

Wang’s comments came after Zhang Heqing, cultural counselor at the Chinese embassy in Pakistan, commented on a video of tens of thousands of people demonstrating in Brussels against the cost-of-living crisis on June 20, claiming it was a protest against NATO.

“Tens of thousands of protesters marched in #Brussels chanting “Stop #NATO” on June 20, expressing anger at the rising living costs & condemning NATO countries’ rush to arm #Ukraine,” Zhang wrote, quote-tweeting the nationalistic Global Times newspaper.







No comments: