“China’s declared ambitions and coercive policies challenge our interests, security and values,” says NATO’s latest Strategic Concept, which emerged from the Madrid summit.
Thus, the US’s allies were dragged into conflict with the country that could oppose its hegemony, aiming to remain the only global superpower at any cost.
Washington wanted to embarrass the Chinese government by urging it to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But if Beijing didn’t see the invasion well, it also thinks the type of conflict lies in North America’s strategy to destabilize Russia.
For Beijing, the ultimate target of this strategy is China itself, and it is China that the US is trying to escalate to curb its economic growth and, if possible, cause its disintegration, as it has tried to do with the former Soviet Union. . . .
This is the opinion of a deep Chinese expert such as the Italian Alberto Bradanini, the former consul general in Hong Kong, the former ambassador to Beijing, and the current head of the Center for Contemporary Chinese Studies.
For the senior former Italian diplomat, the United States does not recognize that different nations of the world can coexist in their diversity while maintaining their ideal, social or economic characteristics.
According to Brandanini, “world peace is in jeopardy not because of the (economic) growth of China, but because of the pathology of the sovereignty of our main ally, which denies other countries the right to develop their own sovereignty and growth on the basis of principles and principles that are legitimate and autonomous.
The Chinese government does not care at all about the conflict, as it considers it contrary to its interests, which go through the growth of domestic demand, investment and international trade, and in the event of a conflict they will be the first victims.
It should be noted that China shares the benefits of bilateral trade with Russia of great strategic value: it imports gas and oil overland without having to cross the US-controlled seas, and in turn exports products such as the following to Russia. Machinery and technology, including 5G networks.
The value of Russia-China trade is close to $150,000 million, an advantage for Russia that will increase in the future due to the increase in this country’s Siberian gas imports, which China will stop exporting to Europe.
But Beijing also has close trade ties with the United States and the EU, whose value exceeds trade with Russia: Thus, in 2021, trade with the United States reached a value of $657 billion, with a surplus of 335 billion for the Asian country. .
The total value of trade with the EU was 695,000 million, giving China an advantage of 250,000 million in this case. To all these, it is necessary to add mutual investments with both the EU and the USA.
Underlining the important role of the world’s largest fund managers operating there, such as BlackRock, Vanguard, Goldman Sachs, Mortan Stanley and others, a total of 70,000 US companies do business in China with annual turnover of $700,000 million, according to Bradanini. .
Meanwhile, the US and NATO denounce China’s military ambitions, given the fact that the superpower has around 800 bases around the world, to add 42 of its main ally, the UK.
China, on the other hand, currently only has one in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa; As the Italian expert recalls, Italy also has one designed to fight Somali pirates operating in these waters.
Keeping twelve aircraft carriers in operation compared to China’s three, the United States opposes Beijing’s armament ambitions, which it sees as an intolerable challenge to its global military hegemony.
But the former Italian ambassador does not believe that China is ready to invade Taiwan, which it considers part of the national territory.
The only thing that could lead Beijing to intervene militarily there is an official declaration of independence by the island government, something that, in his view, would not make much sense as it was already independent in practice.
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In statements collected by sinitrainrete.