Chinese diplomat Wang Yi announced in Munich this Saturday that he was finalizing preparations for a “peace initiative” that would end the war in Ukraine in accordance with the United Nations Charter.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, the director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Communist Party of China stated that his country, which rejected the Russian invasion as an attack on Ukraine’s territorial integrity, never supported sanctions against Moscow , will always defend “peace and dialogue” in the “political solution of the crisis”.
“We must give peace a chance,” he said in the speech, the first by a Chinese diplomat of his caliber at the security forum since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
The Chinese official said “trust between the major world powers is becoming hesitant”, criticizing the “return to the Cold War mentality” that he says is currently reigning.
“The principles of the United Nations Charter are something we must defend,” he added, stressing once again that sanctions policies are not a solution as they are an obstacle to dialogue, the main tool in conflict resolution.
The balloon crisis
In a subsequent debate, Wang Yi took the opportunity to raise other issues, such as the recent crisis of China’s alleged spy balloons over US soil.
In line with his government’s official statements, Wang assured that the United States was “exaggerating” in taking down one of these devices, which did not pose a security threat in any way.
“There are many balloons in the sky. Are you going to take them down one by one?” the Chinese minister wondered before asking Washington to “stop making a fool of yourself just to divert attention from his own problems”.
The diplomat also followed China’s official stance on Taiwan’s status, stressing that “it is part of Chinese territory” and that “it never was and never will be a country”.
Despite these statements, however, there is a good chance that the Chinese foreign minister and his US counterpart will have a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Munich conference, which will last until Sunday.
At the meeting, China and the United States intend to compensate for the suspension of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s planned visit to China, canceled precisely after the crisis opened by the balloons.
Source: DN
