Finland's Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto (left) Sweden's Foreign Minister Ann Linde (right) and Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg attend a media conference after the signature of the Nato Accession Protocols for Finland and Sweden in the Nato headquarters in Brussels, on July 5, 2022
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THE West has started expanding Nato eastward into Asia, Chinese diplomat Zhang Hanhui warned yesterday, as he said the US would not be allowed to use “the law of the jungle” in international relations.
The ambassador to Russia accused Washington of trying to create a crisis in the Taiwan Strait “to interfere in its domestic affairs” and exhaust and contain China through war and sanctions.
He said that its actions against Taiwan indicated that the West had begun to apply the “Nato expansion to the East” concept in the Asia-Pacific region.
“Non-interference in domestic affairs is the most fundamental principle of maintaining peace and stability in our world and we cannot allow for ‘the law of the jungle’ to dominate again in transnational relations,” Mr Zhang said.
“The collective West has replicated the Ukrainian scenario in relation to Taiwan. The United States goes to great lengths to create chaos in the world in order to retain its hegemonistic position,” the diplomat said.
He recalled that the United States “provoked five rounds of Nato’s expansion to the East, staged a colour revolution in Ukraine and drove Russia into a corner in the field of security, which ultimately resulted in the Ukrainian crisis.”
Mr Zhang told the Russian news agency Tass that the Chinese people would never watch with indifference while the US uses Taiwan as a pawn in its attempts “to pump up tensions, provoke confrontations and increase rifts in the region.”
Washington must stand by its adherence to the One China principle, under which it recognises that Taiwan is an integral part of Chinese territory and work on maintaining peace and stability in the region.
Tensions escalated after the provocative visit to Taiwan of Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi last week.
It prompted an angry response from Beijing which launched major military exercises in the Taiwan Strait.
Ms Pelosi and her family have since been hit by sanctions with their assets seized in China and a ban on them visiting the mainland, Hong Kong and Macau.
At least 160 countries have reiterated support for Chinese sovereignty.
