NATO's aggression behind pro-peace veneer: China Daily editorial

China has increasingly become a scapegoat for some in the West to cover up their failure to resolve the Ukraine crisis, if not an excuse for them to advance certain parties' geopolitical schemes.

NATO and the European Union are ramping up efforts to pressure China to stop its "assistance" to Russia, and help get the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to stop its support to Russia for its "special military operation" in Ukraine.

China's normal and stable diplomatic ties and economic and trade cooperation with any other country, including its two neighbors, are by no means leverage those Western forces can apply to advance their own agenda.

That both North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the EU have stepped up their collusion with and sealed certain forms of security pacts with such Asia-Pacific countries as Japan and the Republic of Korea citing "common threats" from other regional countries should be regarded as a political lever that these forces want to use to press China to do their bidding on the Ukraine crisis.

In an opinion piece, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte wrote: "China bears particular responsibility here, to use its influence in Pyongyang and Moscow to ensure they cease these actions. Beijing cannot pretend to promote peace while turning a blind eye to increasing aggression."

After meeting with the top US diplomat on Wednesday, Rutte said "the Euro-Atlantic and the 'Indo-Pacific' really have to be seen as one theater, and not as two separate ones", and that "our security, therefore, now more and more is global, and we have to look at this as a global issue".

Neither NATO nor the EU, or their common ally across the Atlantic, has provided any substantial evidence to support their claim that China is providing "military assistance" to Russia.

Instead, the whole world sees clearly which party is playing an ugly role in both the Ukraine crisis and the Korean Peninsula issue, along with the Gaza conflict, for its own narrow ends, and which party is upholding a neutral, fair and balanced stance on these issues, tirelessly working for cease-fires and lasting peace.

The haste with which the new NATO chief inherited the mantle of his predecessor in trying to weld together the transatlantic and the "Indo-Pacific" alliance networks using made-in-China welding rods clearly indicates the real motive is not to resolve the conflicts but to make China part of them as "a decisive enabler", "a potential accomplice" and then "a real threat".

These tactics are also an integral part of the decoupling and de-risking moves of some developed economies targeting China, providing the China hawks on the economic front with "evidence" to transform a long-term major trading partner into an enemy at the gate overnight.

The EU has sanctioned multiple Chinese entities on groundless charges that they are providing support to Russia's military in the Ukraine crisis. And even though its imports of Russia-sourced energy remain sizable and it keeps silent on other countries' fast rising trade with Russia, it attacks China's normal trade with the country.

The Ukraine crisis has been ongoing for 1,000 days. Both parties to the conflict are yet to give up their obsession with winning by force and keep launching large-scale attacks against each other, which have been expanding in recent days. China has no self-interest in the Ukraine crisis, and along with other Global South countries, it has established the Friends for Peace group that calls for no spillover of the battlefield, no escalation of the fighting, and no provocation by any party.

Those Western forces trying to smear China over the Ukraine crisis should realize that, as history has proven time and again, military means will not bring lasting peace, and that all conflicts will, in the final analysis, end at the negotiating table. They should stop their scapegoating tricks and jointly send a strong message for an early cease-fire and a political settlement of the crisis with China and other peace-loving nations.