US-led NATO, not China, is responsible for global conflicts

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg's hostile comments about China on Thursday were not only provocative, but defied the facts on the ground.

At the news conference following a NATO foreign ministers' meeting, Stoltenberg blamed China for being "unwilling to condemn Russia's aggression "without saying that many other countries, such as India, South Africa and Vietnam, held the same or a similar stance. These countries maintain good relations with both Russia and Ukraine and hope to solve the conflict through dialogue and diplomatic means, while United States-led NATO has been fanning the fire.

In addition, more than 150 countries have not joined the US and European Union in imposing economic sanctions on Russia because they know sanctions are ineffective in conflict resolution, except in impoverishing innocent civilians.

Contrary to what Stoltenberg claimed, China has been calling for the respect of national sovereignty and has urged de-escalation. But it was abundantly clear from the beginning that NATO is not innocent in the current conflict.

John Mearsheimer, a US political scientist, has blamed three decades of reckless NATO expansion, plus US-plotted color revolution, for being the primary cause of the current conflict. He said that as a consequence, the Ukrainians are the people who have suffered the most.

In his view, the US has been running the show and the Europeans and NATO only do what the US asks them to do. He also criticized the Europeans for failing to stand up to the US.

However, Stoltenberg will never address such criticism, which has been voiced not only by Mearsheimer but by many others around the world, including in the US and Europe.

Stoltenberg was wrong when he said that "Beijing has joined Moscow in questioning the right of nations to choose their own path".

China is well-known for its long-standing policy of noninterference in other countries' internal affairs and has long called for the world to respect countries' right to choose their own development path, including China's right to choose its own path.

China's economic miracle in the past four decades, including lifting some 800 million people out of poverty and becoming the world's second-largest economy and largest trading nation, is globally acknowledged.

Stoltenberg said that "for the first time, it (NATO) must also take account of how China's growing influence and coercive policies affect our security".

But it was the US that has been constantly coercing countries to choose sides or face the consequences of its military, economic and financial bullying power.

China's track record in war and peace has been laudable, despite Stoltenberg's smearing and fear-mongering. China has not engaged in any war since the brief border war with Vietnam in 1979.

In sharp contrast, NATO is not at all a defense alliance as Stoltenberg claimed. The bombing and regime change in Libya conducted by NATO and several of its member states in 2011 by abusing a UN Security Council resolution on a no-fly zone has ruined the country. It also made global nuclear nonproliferation more difficult because it happened shortly after Libya gave up its nuclear weapons program.

The same can be said of NATO's months of bombing in former Yugoslavia in 1999, which led to the deaths of many civilians, including the missile strike that hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese nationals.

NATO has not apologized or shown any remorse for its crimes in Libya and former Yugoslavia, despite the criticism by various rights groups such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Arab Organization for Human Rights.

It was not the first time that Stoltenberg has tried to find an excuse for NATO to extend its role to the Asia-Pacific region as part of the US effort to contain China. But his remarks on Thursday were futile, trying to confuse right and wrong.

The author is chief of China Daily's EU Bureau in Brussels.