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China and Russia Work Tirelessly to Maintain Global Strategic Stability

November 15 , 2021 04:38 PM by JI Zhiye
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President Xi Jinping and President Putin signed a joint statement on maintaining global strategic stability on June 5 in Moscow, Russia, demonstrating to the world the unremitting efforts of China and Russia, two permanent members of the UN Security Council, to maintain global strategic stability and safeguard world peace.

After the end of the Cold War, the United States, with its huge military power and strategic arsenal, unilaterally pursued its own "absolute security" and unilaterally broke the original foundation of international law on strategic stability. (ABM Treaty) and began deploying ABM systems around the world, upsetting the U.S.-Russian strategic balance of power and destroying the original strategic stability. Since then, the U.S. has let loose with the large-scale development, exploitation and deployment of various ABM systems.

In 2010, during Obama's presidency, he and then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the START-3 Treaty, which enabled the U.S. and Russia to maintain a degree of strategic stability. However, after Trump became president in 2017, he not only stepped up the deployment and testing of global missile defense systems, but also withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018 despite strong opposition from all sides, seriously undermining the international nuclear non-proliferation regime. The Soviet-U.S. Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles (INF Treaty), which was signed in 1987, will be formally withdrawn six months later. Once again, the basis of international law for global strategic stability has been seriously undermined.

Currently, the only remaining international treaty between the U.S. and Russia that maintains strategic balance and stability is START-3, which is set to expire in 2021. Russia and the United States have so far not negotiated the continuation of this treaty or the signing of a new one. Russian officials have repeatedly expressed their desire to resume negotiations and extend the treaty for five years, but the U.S. side has stalled on the grounds that there is still time. In view of the current actions of the Trump administration, it does not have the will to maintain strategic balance and stability, but is immersed in the illusion of "America first" and "America great again. The foundation of international law for global strategic stability has come to a dead end!

In other words, the realistic basis for "mutually assured destruction" among the major nuclear powers no longer exists, and nuclear powers with both strategic offensive and defensive capabilities are prone to the warlike impulse of "pre-emptive" strikes. For nuclear powers that do not have strategic defense capabilities, a new strategic balance of power must be pursued in order to achieve a new strategic stability. A new strategic power competition is inevitable. The unilateralism of the Trump administration is pulling the world into a new nuclear terror and arms race. World peace and human destiny are facing unprecedented challenges.

It is against this backdrop that President Xi Jinping and President Putin once again declared to the world in a joint statement that China and Russia - two permanent members of the UN Security Council and two countries with nuclear power - are firmly opposed to any unilateral acts that undermine global strategic stability and express a strong The strong will to maintain global strategic stability was expressed. This position of China and Russia is consistent and coherent. In particular, on June 25, 2016, President Xi Jinping and President Putin, foreseeing that global strategic stability will be more severely tested, issued a Joint Statement on Strengthening Global Strategic Stability specifically around this issue in Beijing. The statement enumerated phenomena that undermine global strategic stability, such as the deployment of anti-missile systems, the development of long-range precision strike weapons, the weaponization of space, and the acquisition of biological and chemical weapons by international terrorist organizations, by "individual countries and military-political alliances" in the Eurasian region, and put forward the basic principles for maintaining global strategic stability in both political and military fields. the basic principles of global strategic stability and called on all members of the international community to strengthen dialogue, cooperation and communication in order to maintain world peace.

Today, the environment of strategic stability is still being relentlessly undermined, and in the face of the serious challenges to the international security environment, the Russian and Chinese heads of state once again issued a joint statement on the issue of global strategic stability, expressing their common "concern". The two sides systematically reviewed the existing treaties and documents on the maintenance of global strategic stability, as well as the draft treaty on the prevention of the rotation of weapons in outer space, the threat or use of force against outer space objects, submitted jointly by Russia and China to the United Nations, and even referred to the use of new technologies in the military sphere to bring about a "new frontier" of global strategic stability. "new frontiers". The joint statement clearly points out that the withdrawal of the United States from the ABM and INF treaties and the deployment of strategic anti-missile systems in various regions of the world and even in outer space have a serious negative impact on international security and stability, increase uncertainty in the nuclear missile field, trigger an arms race and have a negative impact on START-3, which will expire in 2021.

The statement criticized the "nuclear sharing policy" as inconsistent with the spirit of the NPT, and demanded that the countries concerned return their nuclear weapons deployed outside their territories to their homelands. It rejected the U.S. refusal to implement the Iran nuclear deal and the unilateral sanctions imposed on Iran, and criticized the U.S. for refusing to ratify the CTBT and for blocking the UN panel of experts from adopting the PAROS report. The joint statement starkly informed the world that the system of global strategic stability is on the verge of collapse and that all peace-loving countries must act quickly to jointly preserve hard-won world peace.

The joint statement of the heads of state of Russia and China declares the ambition of the two leaders to safeguard global strategic stability on the basis of the common interests of mankind. They expressed strong concern and anxiety that the current principles of international law of global strategic stability are being brutally trampled and undermined by hegemonic states. The joint statement of the Russian and Chinese heads of state reflects the courageous spirit of the leaders of the two countries to assume responsibility for the common interests of mankind. In terms of wording, this joint statement by the two leaders is more direct, more pointed and more profoundly singles out the dangers of what the United States is doing than the 2016 joint statement. Still, the joint statement calls on the entire international community, including the United States, to address each other's concerns through dialogue and consultation, increase the level of mutual trust, avoid strategic misunderstandings and miscalculations, work together to maintain global strategic stability, and work together to safeguard world peace.

The joint statement of the Russian and Chinese heads of state once again showed the world that the comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation between Russia and China in the new era has become even closer in the struggle to maintain global strategic stability. The statement also speaks to the peace-loving hearts of the world's people. Perhaps some perverse people remain indifferent, but they cannot change the direction in which the wheel of history is moving.