China Will Partner With Russia To Promote ‘Real Democracy’: Wang

Yesterday, Chinese minister of foreign affairs Wang Yi said China will collaborate with Russia to advance “real democracy.” 

“China is willing to work together with Russia and the global community to promote real democracy based on nations’ own conditions,” Wang said in remarks delivered by video link to a China-Russia think tank summit. Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s minister of foreign affairs, also participated. 

“China and Russia should continue to join hands with peace-loving countries in the world to safeguard the global order with the UN at its core and based on international laws,” said Wang.

According to The Independent, in an apparent reference to U.S. foreign policy, “Wang said ‘monopolising’ the definition of democracy and human rights to influence other nations was a tactic ‘doomed to fail’.”

In thinly-veiled criticism of U.S.-led NATO expansion and economic warfare via sanctions, Wang said global security shouldn’t be pursued by “strengthening military groups” and “fragmenting supply chains.” 

Consistent with that notion of resistance to the West’s multi-front sanction attacks, last week China and Russia vetoed a U.S.-sponsored UN resolution that would have imposed new sanctions on North Korea in response to the country’s 23 intercontinental ballistic missile tests this year.

The Security Council vote was 15-2. After, China and Russia called instead for renewed dialogue. 

In his Wednesday remarks, Wang said China and Moscow will “continue to make important contributions” to international relations as permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. 

China has taken an official stance of neutrality regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, while China and Russia are in frequent, high-profile diplomatic contact, Chinese president Xi Jinping reportedly hasn’t spoken to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky since the war began on February 24. 

Meanwhile, as Russia is battered by sanctions on a variety of its exports, China’s imports from Russia in April surged 57% over the year before. 

While Russia is under fire from the West over the invasion of Ukraine, China has fostered its own set of international tensions with saber-rattling rhetoric over Taiwan.

The China-Russia relationship has “withstood the new test of the changing international situation, maintained the correct direction of progress, and shown tenacious development momentum,” Wang said Wednesday. 

Presidents Xi and Vladimir Putin met in Beijing three weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Their governments issued a joint statement declaring that “friendship between the two states has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation.” 

As Reuters reported at the time, “The agreement marked the most detailed and assertive statement of Russian and Chinese resolve to work together to build a new international order based on their view of human rights and democracy.”