Analysts: China opposes sanctions for good reasons

BEIJING: One month after the Ukraine crisis broke out, China and an increasing number of like-minded nations have voiced objection to unilateral sanctions by United States-led Western countries.

The reasons are clear: Such sanctions will only make the crisis last longer, break international rules and order, worsen people’s livelihoods and aggravate the humanitarian tragedy, analysts said.

One of the clear messages against these sanctions is from President Xi Jinping. He told US President Joe Biden on March 18 that sweeping and indiscriminate sanctions would only make the people suffer.

If further escalated, the sanctions could trigger serious crises in global economy and trade, finance, energy, food, and industrial and supply chains, crippling the already languishing world economy and causing irrevocable losses, Xi said.

“China has all along opposed unilateral sanctions that have neither basis in international law nor mandate of the (United Nations) Security Council,” and “imposing sanctions is like ‘putting out fire with firewood’ and will only make things worse”, Vice-Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said at a forum yesterday.

Zhu Jiejin, a professor of global governance studies at Fudan University’s School of International Relations and Public Affairs, said, “The recently imposed sanctions are shaking the existing international financial order while dealing heavy blows to the already shaky recovery of the global economy amid the Covid-19 pandemic.”

A joint statement issued by the foreign ministries of China and Algeria said both countries oppose indiscriminate application of unilateral sanctions without the support of international law.

Both countries urged avoiding the sabotaging of international rules and harming the livelihoods of people of various countries.

None of the other BRICS members – Brazil, India, China and South Africa – has joined in the sanctions against fellow member Russia. G20 members such as Mexico also declined to do so.

Walter Russell Mead, a distinguished fellow at the US Hudson Institute think tank, said China’s basic approach – not endorsing Moscow’s moves and resisting Western efforts to punish Russia – has garnered global support.

In an article published in The Wall Street Journal on Monday, Mead said, “The West has never been more closely aligned,” and “It has also rarely been more alone”.

The Ukraine crisis is developing in a way that goes beyond itself with spillovers affecting the whole world, and “the momentum of world economic recovery should not be disrupted”, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin.

Wang spoke of the widely shared view that when addressing regional and international issues, war and sanctions are not the only options, and dialogue and negotiation are the fundamental way out.

“The people should by no means be made to bear the brunt of geopolitical conflicts and major-country rivalry,” he said. — China Daily/ANN