China’s peace proposal for Ukraine
China’s peace proposal for Ukraine
A sign of the emerging pluripolar world order
On February 24, 2024, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China issued a statement, “China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis,” which can be found on the Website of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
More than a peace proposal for Ukraine, the Chinese document affirms principles that ought to guide the conduct of nations in the international community. Such principles have been repeatedly reiterated by China and by the governments of the Third World since the 1950s, and they stand in opposition to the practices of U.S. and Western imperialism.
Said principles, as formulated in China’s statement, include respect for the sovereignty of all countries, be they big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor. All are equal members of the international community. I would like to note that this has been a long-standing principle of the Non-Aligned Movement, today affirmed by its 120 members nations.
And the principles declared in the Chinese statement include that of protecting the security of each country through the attainment of the common security of all, which is a fundamental concept in China’s global security initiative, put forth in a speech by Xi Jinping in 2022. See “China’s Xi Jinping has a better plan,” April 26, 2022. This implies, the document states, that security interests will not be advanced at the expense of some countries and by expanding military blocs; the Cold War mentality must be abandoned.
With respect to the hostilities in Ukraine, the document calls upon all sides to cease hostilities and resume dialogue, with the intention of attaining a comprehensive cease fire. And the document calls upon the parties to resume peace talks, with the goal of a political settlement.
The document calls for the ending of all unilateral sanctions that have not been authorized by the UN Security Council. It opposes the use of the world economy as a tool for political purposes.
In addition, the document calls for earnest efforts to keeping industrial and supply chains stable. In particular, it calls for full and effective implementation of the Black Sea Grain Initiative signed by Russia, Türkiye, Ukraine, and the United Nations.
“China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis” also expressed its opposition to armed attacks against nuclear power plants or other peaceful nuclear facilities. It declared that nuclear weapons must not be used, and that nuclear wars must not be fought. It further declared that no country ought to develop or use chemical or biological weapons.
Finally, the document called on all parties to avoid attacking civilians. It called for the creation of humanitarian corridors and the evacuation of civilians from conflict zones. It supported the exchange of POWs between Russia and Ukraine.
China’s potential role as a peacemaker in the world
China has a strong, dynamic economy, with extensive commercial and diplomatic relations throughout the world; and historically, China was never an imperialist power. These fundamental facts place China in a position to play a peacekeeping role in the conflicts that emerge today between American and Western imperialism, on the one hand, and nations that resist the dictates of Western imperialism in defense of their sovereign rights, on the other.
In the age of modern imperialism (the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries), the imperialist powers were England, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Japan. The seven Western European nations were the driving force of modern colonialism, forging a capitalist world-economy with a geographical division of labor between core and peripheral zones, with the periphery functioning to provide natural resources, cheap labor, cheap raw materials, and markets for the core nations. Italian imperialism in North Africa was late in arriving and limited in scope. Russian and Japanese imperialisms were for the most part regional, and they to some extent were reactions to Western European expansionism and peripheralization. They had characteristics somewhat different from Western imperialism.
China was not a modern imperialist power. Prior to the modern era, China’s advanced civilizations were based on extensive commercial relations throughout the world, with conquest confined to the territories that eventually would be included as part of the modern nation of China. In the nineteenth century, Western European and U.S. penetration of East Asia led to a decline in the Chinese economy, as China was compelled to accept “unequal treaties” that opened various ports to Western commerce with terms unfavorable to China. The three major twentieth century movements in China—republicanism, nationalism, and communism—had in common a desire to restore China to its former greatness. Communism prevailed in the second half of the twentieth century, and by the beginning of the twenty-first century, it would empirically demonstrate its capacity to achieve the envisioned restoration in a form that included protecting the rights of peasants and workers, combined with respecting yet limiting the rights of capitalists and merchants, thus consolidating its political support.
The Chinese story ideologically enabled it to discern the need for a different kind of world-system, one based not on competing imperialisms but on cooperation among the nations and support for the socioeconomic rights of peasants, workers and merchants, as the only possible foundation for a world defined by peace, prosperity, continuous technological advancement, and sustained economic growth. At the same time, the nations that had been colonized by Western imperialism, most of them suffering the consequences of peripheralization and deindustrialization, were arriving to a similar perspective, which they expressed in the “spirit of Bandung,” the Non-Aligned Movement, G77, the proposal for a New International Economic Order, and demands for a more just, democratic, and sustainable world. Today, China and the Third World project have joined in economic and diplomatic cooperation, endeavoring to construct in theory and in practice a pluripolar world-system and a more just, equal, and sustainable world order, gradually coopting and displacing the unipolar world-system directed by the USA. (“China and the Third World: The construction of an alternative, more just world-system,” October 1, 2021).
American imperialism is exceptional. During the nineteenth century, the USA established itself as an exceptionally large, continent-wide white settler society, on the basis of the conquest of the indigenous nations and peoples, and aided by strategic economic relations with the slave economies of the Caribbean and the U.S. South. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the USA forged a different kind of imperialism, not based on the direct territorial control but on control of economies through political and economic alliance with subordinated national elites. This more deceptive form of colonialism was in harmony with the world transition to neocolonialism following the Second World War, as the European colonial empires disintegrated before the onslaught of the anti-colonial movements of the Third World. Thus, the United States emerged as the hegemonic power in a neocolonial world-system, a phenomenon that reached its highpoint from 1945 to 1965, which culminated a spectacular economic ascent.
The exceptional American achievement, however, was full of contradictions during the twentieth century. These included: the need for the world-economy to expand through conquest of new lands and peoples, functioning in a context in which the geographical limits of the earth were being reached, such that there were no more lands and peoples to conquer; the overproduction of the world system in relation to the ecologically sustainable capacity of the earth; the continuous drive of the neocolonies for true sovereignty, seeking control of their national economies and the natural resources found in their territories; and the tendency of the U.S. government to make concessions to popular demands, without attending to the development of the productivity of the U.S. national economy in the long-term.
Rather than attending to these contradictions in a scientifically informed and morally responsible manner, the American power elite entered into new forms of economic and military aggression. As a result of the self-interested policies of the power elite, the U.S. economy declined relative to the Western European ex-colonial powers, to the rapidly expanding economy of China, and to the larger economies of the formerly colonized regions. After 1965, U.S. prestige and power in the world declined considerably, as a result of the escalation of the Vietnam War beginning in 1965, the imposition of the neoliberal economic package on the less developed and poorer nations following 1980, the “War of Terrorism” and the endless wars in the Middle East following 2001, and the unconventional wars against targeted nations seeking sovereignty in Latin America since 2014.
As a result of the economic and moral decline of the USA, relative to its position in the period 1945 to 1965, the USA is no longer positioned to play the role of peacekeeper and arbiter of disputes. China, however, is so positioned, and its proposal to mediate the conflict in Ukraine signals its willingness to assume a constructive peacekeeping role in world affairs. China’s logical role as peacekeeper is not yet recognized by the world, but taking into account emerging historical and world dynamics, such recognition will not be long in coming. However, the launching or the provoking of a nuclear holocaust by the self-interested and desperate American power elite could change the direction of unfolding world dynamics.
My intention is not to say that the USA is inherently evil or unredeemable. Rather, my intention is to say that the people of the United States ought to recognize these fundamental facts in order to arrive to an informed understanding concerning what steps the people ought now take. Possibilities include the taking of political power from the American power elite, which, as is evident, has betrayed the nation in order to advance its own economic interests. The morally irresponsible elite and its political lackeys ought to be discredited through the formulation and dissemination of an alternative narrative on the nation, rooted in the founding principles of the American republic, and seeing cooperation with China and the Third World and attention to the productivity of the American economy as the necessary expression of the founding values of the American republic in our time. In these possibilities, intellectuals of the United States have a necessary moral and pedagogical role to play.
Cuban reflections on the war in Ukraine
On the February 27 broadcast of the hour-long Cuban news discussion program, Mesa Redonda, three Cuban intellectuals reflected the war in Ukraine.
Juan Sanchez, Professor at the Superior Institute for International Relations, began with the observation that no one thought a year ago that the conflict would arrive to this point. It has evolved to a point of great danger for the entire world, inasmuch as it is accompanied by increasing tension between the United States and NATO, on the one hand, and China and Korea, on the other.
Gladys Hernández, Researcher at the Center for Investigation of the World Economy, stressed that the economic sanctions against Russia have had a boomerang effect, causing serious damage to the economies of Europe, due to Europe’s extensive commercial relations with Russia. There is occurring, she observed, a global reconfiguration, breaking recently established Eurasian economic integration; and promoting greater Western European and U.S. economic and military integration, on a basis of European subordination to the USA. We are witnessing, she said, a redefinition of European security, American style. In addition, she noted, the conflict has disrupted supply chains, provoking higher prices for many countries in the world.
Nelson Roque, Researcher at the Center for Investigation of International Politics, observed that the extensive arms being sent to Ukraine likely will be replaced, thereby generating significant profits for the military-industrial complex. Europe is returning, he observed, to subordination to the USA.
All three intellectuals consider the Chinese peace proposal to be well-thought, although its implementation will be difficult to attain. It is a comprehensive proposal that includes attention to the consequences of the war, and therefore it is not surprising that Ukraine has indicated that the proposal has some good points.
It seems to me that some of the countries of Eastern Europe that are less commercially tied to the U.S. military-industrial complex may be the first to push for peace in accordance with the Chinese proposal. Similarly, in Western Europe, the economic sectors more tied to Russia in recent decades and less tied to the U.S. military industrial complex may soon be among those advocating for peace in accordance with the Chinese proposal. Throughout Europe, the popular sectors may also turn against the war, considering the damage that it is causing to their standard of living. However, to arrive to defend their economic interests, the peoples of Europe would have to be educated—by committed intellectuals—beyond Russia phobia and China phobia.
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