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News > China

China, Russia Issue Joint Statement on NATO European Expansion

  • Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping pose for a photograph during their meeting & the recent anti-NATO joint statement in Beijing, on February 4, 2022

    Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping pose for a photograph during their meeting & the recent anti-NATO joint statement in Beijing, on February 4, 2022 | Photo: Twitter @ASBMilitary

Published 4 February 2022
Opinion

The two countries emphasize the need for cooperation between governments across the world, given the challenges of fast-moving economic globalization, political upheavals, and a pandemic that continues to threaten millions and weigh on international security.

In the midst of an escalating row between Moscow and U.S.-led NATO in Eastern Europe, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, have backed a joint call for NATO to halt its plans for further expansion and avoid the continuation of the ‘Cold War’ mentality.

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After the two world leaders met in Beijing on Friday, ahead of the opening of the Winter Olympic Games, the Kremlin published the text of a statement agreed by both sides, calling for dialogue in an effort to reduce tensions.

“The parties oppose the further expansion of NATO and call for the North Atlantic Alliance to refrain from ideological approaches from the time of the Cold War,” it reads, as well as urging the bloc “to respect sovereignty, security, the interests of other countries, and the diversity of their civilizational and cultural-historical ways; and to deal with the peaceful development of other governments objectively and fairly.”

The two countries emphasize the need for cooperation between governments across the world, given the challenges of fast-moving economic globalization, political upheavals, and a pandemic that continues to threaten millions and weigh on international security.

They called on global leaders to “strengthen dialogue and mutual trust, to deepen cooperation, and to defend such universal human values as peace, growth, equality, justice, democracy, and freedom.”

Furthermore, the statement, which was published on the Kremlin website, calls for “a genuine multilateralism under the central and coordinating role of the UN and its Security Council” and to “bring about the democratization of international relations, to guarantee peace, stability, and steady development on earth.”

The meeting between Putin and Xi, the Chinese leader’s first face-to-face diplomatic interaction since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, comes amid a series of warnings from Western leaders that Moscow is poised to launch an invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

Moscow has consistently denied that it has any aggressive intentions and has called for written security guarantees limiting the expansion of NATO, the U.S.-led military bloc, into Ukraine and Georgia, effectively barring the two states from membership. 

Putin and others have previously said they could take unspecified “military-technical measures” if deemed necessary to ensure Russia’s security.

The two nations have stressed the importance of their relations in recent months. In December, Kremlin foreign policy advisor Yury Ushakov said that China supported Russia’s efforts to sign a deal with NATO. Beijing has previously committed to working with Moscow to develop financial systems that are resistant to sanctions and minimize dependency on the U.S. dollar.

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