China’s statement at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that “territorial integrity” of all the countries should be respected has drawn sharp criticism from India and various other global quarters.
Taking a dig at Beijing, Indian diplomats here say that China must practice what it is preaching at the UNSC. “While the Xi regime is involved in all sorts of illegal conducts along the Line of Actual Control, disrespecting various written pacts on maintaining peace in the border region, Beijing’s remark underlining the need to respect territorial integrity and sovereignty of other nations is devoid of any seriousness,” point out diplomats.
Sources told The Daily Guardian that envoys of various other countries at the UN including Australia, Japan, US, UK, Germany and France were also critical of the Chinese envoy’s remark as the country’s action has always been at variance with what it was preaching at the UNSC in terms of territorial integrity and sovereignty of other nations.
In fact, China’s Ambassador to the UN Zhang Jun told a Security Council meeting, “Our position and proposition on how to view and handle the Ukraine issue is consistent and clear. That is, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be respected.” Analysing the statement of the Chinese ambassador, diplomats say that Zhang may have made these remarks in the perspective of the Ukraine situation, but the global community expects Beijing to walk the talk in the first place, which is not possible for it to do. China’s LAC misdeeds and its aggression in the Indo-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region are known to the entire world, says a diplomat. Sources told TDG that the Chinese envoy was given a message about the reaction of the global community after he came out of the UNSC meeting. China wants the global community to interpret its envoy’s statement as a message for Russia, but the other part of the statement from Beijing’s representative at UNSC brought to the fore China’s real feeling about the West. Zhang said that isolation and sanctions would only “lead to a dead end” after the United States called for the body to condemn Russia’s referendums in occupied regions of Ukraine. China was prominently and elaborately discussed during the talks between External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington on Tuesday. Beijing’s misconduct on LAC also figured during the talks, sources said.