Editorial
Friday’s important video call between President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Joe Biden at the latter’s request contained, according a comprehensive analysis by Xinhua*, two traditional Chinese dictums used by Xi: “He who tied the bell on the tiger must take it off” and “It takes two hands to clap”.
The first adage means that the responsibility for solving a problem should fall on the person who created it. The second one means that everyone has a part to play in what happens.
Both aphorisms express age-old Chinese wisdom.
The Times of India’s Washington-based foreign editor Chidanand Rajghatta wrote in an opinion piece yesterday that “with these simple dictums” Xi rejected “Biden’s efforts to pressure Beijing into abandoning Russia on the Ukraine issue, while implicitly blaming Washington and its NATO allies for the crisis.”
I think that my Indian media colleague’s assessment hit the nail on the head.
The video call was noteworthy for the simple reason that our battered planet is a better place when the leaders of its two politically and economically most important countries talk to each other. I was heartened by Biden’s raft of pledges that he made during the call such as that the US doesn’t seek a new Cold War with China, that is doesn’t aim to change China’s political system, that it doesn’t seek conflict with China and, last but not least, that it doesn’t support “Taiwan independence.” Of course, actions speak louder than words, but Biden’s remarks deserve to be taken at face value.
I found Xi’s remarks during the over two-hour conversation to be reasonable, sensible, realistic and principled. Thanks to Xi, China has finally reached a position on the world stage where it can act on an equal footing to other major players, including the US.
Xi told Biden that right now “the world is neither tranquil not stable” – I am sure that both world leaders were in agreement on this worrying state our world is in.
Realistically, Xi underlined that there have been and will continue to be differences between China and the US, but “what matters is to keep such differences under control,” adding that “a steadily growing relationship is in the interest of both sides.” I would like to add that “a steadily growing relationship” between China and the US is also in the interest of the international community as a whole – even for us here in our tiny Macau.
About the Ukraine crisis, Xi said that “China doesn’t want to see the situation in Ukraine come to this. China stands for peace and opposes war. This is embedded in China’s history and culture.”
That’s perfectly understandable, considering that China (and the then Soviet Union) were both the victims of two evil regimes – Nazi Germany and expansionist Japan – in the 20th century that killed tens of millions of their citizens.
Xi reaffirmed China’s commitment to “the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security” as far as its approach to the Ukraine crisis is concerned. He also said that “all sides need to jointly support Russia and Ukraine in having dialogue and negotiation that will produce results and lead to peace.”
One can only hope that Moscow and Kyiv will launch top-level talks as soon as possible to hammer out a solution that takes into consideration the security interests of both.
Xi reminded Biden that “as leaders of major countries, we need to think about how to properly address global hotspot issues and, more importantly, keep in mind global stability and the work and life of billions of people.”
I agree with Xi’s view that “sweeping and indiscriminate sanctions will only make the people suffer. If further escalated, they 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.”
As a social democrat since my high-school years, I wonder if the politicians who have been imposing the barrage of sanctions against Russia have ever carried out in-depth economic analyses about what these sanctions will potentially entail for their own and other countries’ populations, the lower-income strata in particular. I am very worried.
I am also disgusted by the West’s boycotts of Russian artists, musicians and athletes as well as the absolutely asinine measures directed against Russian culture such as cancelling classes on Russian literature. What’s next? Burning Russian books such as Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace? Heaven forbid!
In my home state Lower Saxony there have been calls to stop buying from Russian shops. That’s unpardonable. It’s an eerie reminder of the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses. Thank goodness, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a social democrat, has strongly condemned this kind of nefarious behaviour.
The West seems to be in the grip of anti-Russian mass hysteria – a perturbingly unsavoury response to the Ukraine crisis.
“The more complex the situation, the greater the need to remain cool-headed and rational,” Xi reminded Biden.
A combination of political realism and social responsibility is what is now needed most to tackle the armed conflict in Ukraine which does, of course, have its political reasons such as the ill-considered strategy of NATO’s eastward expansion that ignored Russia’s – real or perceived – security interests.
Russian revolutionary and political theorist was right while commenting on Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s (1780-1831) seminal tome On War to conclude that “politics is the reason, and war is only the tool, not the other way round.”
So let’s hope that a political solution to the Ukraine crisis can be thrashed out at the earliest opportunity. Personally, I think that Ukraine’s internationally guaranteed status of neutrality could be the first step out of the current morass.
As Chinese military theorist Sun Tzu said in his legendary treatise The Art of War: “There is no instance of a country having benefitted from prolonged warfare.” His pertinent observation came 2 ½ millennia before the War in Afghanistan…
I also hope that the “unprecedented” – according to Biden – sanctions imposed by the West will be lifted soon after Russia and Ukraine stop fighting. To put it simply, the world can’t afford this kind of ill-advised blanket of sanctions at a time when it is fighting climate change, the novel coronavirus and a myriad of other very serious problems affecting billions of people every day.
As Xi told Biden, paraphrased by Xinhua, “China and the United States must not only guide their relations forward along the right track, but also shoulder their share of international responsibilities and work for world peace and tranquillity.”
As a realistic optimist I do sincerely hope for a speedy end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and a tangible improvement in China-US relations before long. The whole world would benefit from both.
– Harald Brüning
