Interview: Chinese diplomat calls powers' game root cause of Ukraine crisis

A senior Chinese diplomat has said that the nature and root cause of Ukraine crisis was the game between Russia and western powers, including the United States and the European Union.

"There were internal and external reasons for the Ukraine crisis. Originally, the issue stemmed from Ukraine's internal problems, but it now was not a simple internal matter. Without external intervention from different powers, the Ukrainian problem would not develop into the serious crisis as it be," Chinese Ambassador to Belgium Qu Xing told Xinhua in a recent interview.

POWERS' GAME ROOT TO UKRAINE CRISIS

Qu said that from the perspective of Ukraine's internal affairs, the eastern and western regions in Ukraine differed in culture, ethnic groups, understanding of history, and social and economic development, so the relationship between the two parts had long been affected by external forces.

Moreover, in recent years, as Ukraine underwent repeated changes of regime, politicians focused more on partisan struggle rather than improving people's livelihood. Thereby weak economy and severe corruption further intensified internal contradictions.

Qu noted that Russia would felt anxious that the West may squeeze its geographical space by extending influence in eastern European countries including Ukraine.

In addition, Qu said that the involvement of the United States in Ukraine crisis would become a distraction in its foreign policy, including its "re-balancing strategy".

"The United States is unwilling to see its presence in any part of the world being weakened, but the fact is its resources are limited, and it will be to some extent a hard work to sustain its influence in external affairs, " Qu said.

TO RETHINK CONCEPTS IN GLOBAL AFFAIRS

"The major powers need to seek a win-win situation rather than zero-sum security," Qu said, pointing out that countries needed to rethink the concepts in international affairs and learn a lesson from the Ukraine crisis.

He said for the West's own part, although its military strength had been comparatively powerful, it still felt no absolute security with taking continuous steps to cement security, including moves to enhance the global distribution of ballistic missile defense systems.

An example of west powers' high sensitivity about their own security could be that the United States had a national security review system for foreign investors' mergers and acquisition activities in the United States. But its definition of "national security" was not clear enough and the process of the review should be more transparent to the public, Qu said.

If a country is highly sensitive to its own security, while ignoring other countries' basic security needs and concerns, it will cause lots of problems, and the phenomenon would be a serious issue in nowadays international society. If this problem cannot be solved, the Ukraine issue and some other similar global problems would not be solved, he said.

If the western powers do not have the same acknowledgment of Russia's security concerns and security needs, Russia will feel that it has not been equally treated by the West, and its security interests and development interests have not been respected by the West, he said.

"The West should abandon the zero-sum mentality, and take the real security concerns of Russia into consideration," said Qu.

Against the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis, the international community must re-think over the concepts of international relations. Major powers must get along with each other following the principle of equality, cooperation, and mutual benefits and trust, so as to realize win-win situation in the global scenario, he said.

EU MORE PRAGMATIC THAN US OVER UKRAINE ISSUE

As to the U.S. and Europe's stance on the issue of Ukraine, Qu said the United States and Europe essentially had the same strategy, but their tactics were different, as their geopolitical interests were different, said Qu.

As Ukraine and Europe share geopolitical proximity, Ukraine's chaos will definitely cause instability in Europe. Also, the EU had energy dependence on Russia. Therefore, the EU held more pragmatic attitudes than the United States over the Ukraine issue, he said.

The fact that the United States did not participate in the latest round of negotiations in Minsk precisely reflected the Western parties' concerns and tactics. On the one hand, the absence of the United States raised the negotiation leverage for European partners to force other parties to make more concession. On the other hand, this left the West further action maneuver.

"Even though a latest ceasefire agreement had been achieved, it is still possible for the Western parties to change the original decisions in the future for the excuse that the United States was not involved in the negotiations," he said.

Qu said China hopes the Ukraine crisis could be solved in the political way. On the one hand, China and Ukraine are traditional friendly countries. China has always pursued the principles of non-interference, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. And on the other hand, China acknowledges that the issue involved complicated historical elements. Endit