Opinion | Why China should support Ukraine and condemn Russia’s aggression

Name: China releases 12-point position paper on 1-year anniversary of Russian invasion of Ukraine
Uploaded: 2023-03-02T19:30:13.000Z
Duration: 2 min 21 s
Description: China releases 12-point position paper on 1-year anniversary of Russian invasion of Ukraine

China’s peace plan falsely implies both parties are equally at fault; if it sends weapons to Russia, it also risks making an enemy of Nato

Vitally, it is in Beijing’s interests to uphold the UN Charter and the sovereign rights of nations – which underlines its view that Taiwan is Chinese territory

Reading Time:3 minutes

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Wang Yi, then China’s foreign minister, speaks at a high-level Security Council meeting on the situation in Ukraine on September 22 at the UN headquarters. Photo: AP

Alexander Görlach

Published: 3:30am, 3 Mar 2023Updated: 3:39am, 3 Mar 2023

While in most capitals in the democratic world, calls for resilience prevailed at the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a representative study has found that large groups in China (42 per cent), India (54 per cent) and Turkey (48 per cent) wished for the war to end now, even if it meant Kyiv ceding territory to Moscow.

This split in opinion is the result of a year-long communication war on how to perceive the war and resolve it. In the wake of this interpretation controversy, China’s Communist Party published a peace proposal last Friday.

Unsurprisingly, the paper was criticised by Western governments. The main reason for this judgment stems from the paper itself: It invokes the UN charter, which gives prerogative to the inviolability of the sovereignty of nation states, and expresses the right of each state and its people to determine their destiny.

There is no doubt the Ukrainians did exactly that. It does not matter whether the leader of Russia agrees that Ukraine has a right to do so. Ukraine is a country recognised by the United Nations, hence the charter applies. So why would Beijing not support what it claims itself?

02:21

China releases 12-point position paper on 1-year anniversary of Russian invasion of Ukraine

The document issued by the China’s foreign ministry does not say that Russia invaded a sovereign nation in direct violation of the aforementioned treaty. Although it does not repeat Kremlin’s false accusations that Ukraine needs to be “de-Nazified”, it implies that Nato is to blame for the Russian war and makes it sounds like the Kremlin acted in self defence, rather than as an aggressor.

Only if one views Nato’s expansion through imperial policies that predate the UN might one feel it is right to invade a sovereign nation to emphasise one’s rejection of this country’s chosen path.