China’s Global Times state propaganda newspaper on Sunday applauded that nation’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, for allegedly bringing “confidence for peace” to the United Nations, while leftist American President Joe Biden made the world “nervous and anxious” with his address.
The United Nations General Assembly began last week and is scheduled to conclude on Monday, offering the leader of every member nation the opportunity to address the world for 15 minutes on any topic they choose. Many participants – including both Wang and Biden – speak beyond the soft limit; Biden spoke for about a half an hour, while Wang issued a 20-minute address.
Wang used his address to, among other things, thank the terrorist Taliban organization for leading Afghanistan in a “critical transition from chaos to order” and declaring China’s neutrality in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia is a key ally of the Chinese Communist Party, but Beijing has spent years investing in ties to Kyiv and seeks profitable investments in helping rebuild when the war ends, keeping it from fully embracing the invasion.
Wang addressed the forum in New York in representation of Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, who did not travel to the United Nations headquarters for the occasion:
Wang concluded his speech by threatening nations that acknowledge the reality that Taiwan is a sovereign country. Beijing falsely considers Taiwan a province of China and cuts diplomatic ties to any nation that acknowledges Taiwan’s existence. America does not recognize Taiwan as a country but maintains business ties, including selling it weapons, while keeping diplomatic relations alive with the Chinese Communist Party.
Supporters of Taiwan’s independence, Wang said, would be “crushed by the wheels of history.”
Wang’s open support for a jihadist group such as the Taliban and threats to states for their sovereign diplomatic choices showed that “China is a true builder of world peace,” according to the Global Times .
“When most major world powers are involved in military conflicts, are hyping bloc-to-bloc confrontation and are keen to use sanctions rather than communication to handle crises and divergences,” the state newspaper asserted, “it is truly important that at least one of them, China, keeps upholding the faith for peace and development.”
The Global Times claimed that China was also well-positions to “help the majority of the international community – the developing countries – to overcome the unprecedented challenges caused by the pandemic and geopolitical conflicts, as well as Western sanctions that have disrupted global supply chains.”
In contrast, the state media arm claimed that Biden made the world “nervous.”
“Compared to the speech delivered by US President Joe Biden at the same event on Wednesday, experts said China’s voice brings confidence for peace and development, especially to developing countries that face serious challenges amid multiple crises,” the Global Times proclaimed, “while the voice from the US makes the world nervous and anxious, as the only superpower of the world is trying to use ongoing conflicts and tensions worldwide to save its declining hegemony.”
The state newspaper regularly uses regime-approved “experts” to express the sentiments of the authoritarian regime.
Biden spent much of his speech , delivered last Wednesday, condemning Russia for its eight-year-old invasion of Ukraine. While Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014, when Biden was vice president, Biden and his Democrat party did not prioritize the situation in Ukraine until this February, when Putin announced a military “operation” to seize a much larger area of Ukraine far beyond their mutual border:
“Let us speak plainly. A permanent member of the United Nations Security Council invaded its neighbor, attempted to erase a sovereign state from the map,” Biden declared at the beginning of his speech. “Russia has shamelessly violated the core tenets of the United Nations Charter — no more important than the clear prohibition against countries taking the territory of their neighbor by force.”
“Ukraine has the same rights that belong to every sovereign nation. We will stand in solidarity with Ukraine. We will stand in solidarity against Russia’s aggression. Period,” Biden declared, without extending the same support to the nation of Taiwan, which China regularly threatens to invade.
“We seek to uphold peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits. We remain committed to our One China policy, which has helped prevent conflict for four decades,” Biden said. “And we continue to oppose unilateral changes in the status quo by either side.”
The “One China policy” as interpreted by the United States does not recognize Taiwan as a country, nor does it recognize Taiwan as a province of China, resulting in what is typically called “strategic ambiguity” that maintains the tense status quo.
As Biden dedicated much of his speech to Russia, so, too, did Russian Foreign Ministry Sergey Lavrov dedicate much of his speech to attacking America.
“At some point in the past, declaring that they were victorious in the Cold War, Washington erected themselves into an almost envoy of God on Earth without any obligations but only the sacred right to act with impunity,” Lavrov complained , “to act whenever and wherever they want, and this can be done anywhere against any state – especially if they’ve somehow displeased the self-proclaimed masters of the world.”
“The future of the world order is being decided today and it is clear to any impartial objective [ sic – as per U.N. translator],” Lavrov told the General Assembly. “The question is whether or not that we need a kind of order with one hegemon ahead of it, making everyone else living following his notorious rules of benefit to the hegemon only, or we’re going to have a democratic, fair world without blackmail and without … neo-Nazism and neo-colonialism.”
