The Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China agreed on 4 February 2022 about a joint declaration on “the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development”.
To sum up, both states agree on:
- Democracy within all its singularities, there isn’t only one “democratic standard” of it that needs to be universal all around the world.
- The non-interference of States in the internal affairs of other States
- Promotion and protection of Human rights by referring to the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that set noble goals in the area of universal human rights.
- Development and Cooperation, especially about “The belt and Road Initiative”.
- Health
- International Security.
The last point brings up several interrogations regarding their declaration in February and the Russian’s behavior by starting with the war in Ukraine. The third point of this declaration mention their strong mutual support on territorial sovereignty and opposition on interferences on internal affairs of countries. That is quite ironic since Russia invasion and the delicate situation of Taiwan that is considered as part of China by the sides.
“The sides oppose further enlargement of NATO and call on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologized cold war approaches, to respect the sovereignty, security and interests of other countries (…)”. This comment would be comprehensible without considering the fact that the Russian federation has been applying, for decades now, a huge pressure on former soviet states such as Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Ukraine.
However, it appears to be clear that the declaration also contains good points, at least regarding the letter of the declaration itself. The concerned points could be the Japanese project to dispose of their nuclear wastes into the ocean which would be a disaster ecologically speaking. The second example is aimed towards the AUKUS (security partnership between Australia, United Kingdom, and United States) problematic with the risk of the nuclear proliferation. It is true that the cooperation in the field of nuclear-powered submarines is not supposed to help the nuclear non-proliferation and AUKUS should not develop that type of cooperation. However, it happens in the Indo-Pacific region and is simply a demonstration of power between China on one hand that is clearly the main actor of the ASEAN, and AUKUS that wants to counteract the predominance and abuse of China on the other hand.
To conclude, even the good points pointed out are mainly related to the sides’ personal interests and not about the international community interests as they claimed.
Click on the links below to read the full declaration!
French version: https://histoireetsociete.com/2022/02/08/declaration-conjointe-de-la-russie-et-de-la-chine/
English version: http://en.kremlin.ru/supplement/5770
Credit : Sebastien CLEMENT.
