Photo: The Beijinger, Robert Rauschenberg in China
If the West were not absorbed by negative energy – threats, sanctions, confrontation, re-armament and war – and if it understood the emerging multi-polar world – the West could produce similar documents and we could have a global dialogue.
March 2, 2023
As the editor of The Transnational, I find it important that we make three recent Chinese government statements available to you so you can read them directly – unfiltered by Western mainstream media. It is our conviction that when it comes to China, you simply cannot rely on Western mainstream media – which is what we have documented in TFF’s path-breaking “Smokescreen” report from 2022. Here is another critical analysis of their China-bashing operation.
The wisest you can do is read, listen and then build your own opinion. It takes a bit longer, yes, but you won’t be fooled, and your opinion will be yours.
The three documents are:
First, the Global Security Initiative. Read it here.
The second is the proposal from the Chinese government concerning 12 principles that a peace process for the NATO-Russia conflict in Ukraine should be based on. Read it here.
And the third is the speech by Wang Yi – China’s highest-ranked diplomat and foreign minister 2013-2022 – at the recent Munich Security Conference 2023. As far as I’ve been able to figure out, this was the only speech in that hawkish event that focused, first and foremost, on peace and cooperation in a global perspective – while also, low-key, pointing fingers at those who do not.
The documents merely outline principles and values – such as strong advocacy for the UN and its Charter and win-win cooperation. That’s how the Chinese think if I have understood it correctly.
It is time to list concrete steps and long-range political strategies only when the basic principles and the framework have been consolidated.
I believe it is constructive to do exactly that. Theoretically, it implies doing Diagnosis – what is the conflict? Followed by Prognosis – What will happen if we do this – or we do that? And, then, finally Treatment – mediating and negotiating with a view to solving or transforming the attitudes, behaviours and visions of the conflicting parties and, thereby, finding a model of the future they can all live with – although everyone does not get everything s/he wanted in the first place.
Above all, the violence must stop. Then the world can address the underlying conflicts that have caused the war.
One must hope that the leadership of the United Nations listens carefully to these three documents. And the West – the NATO/EU world – will be reasonably open-minded.