The 15-member UN Security Council voted moments ago on a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Crimea and declaring tomorrow’s scheduled referendum to ratify its annexation of this region of Ukraine invalid and a flagrant violation of international law.
Unsurprisingly, 13 members, led by the United States, voted in favor of the resolution; one member, Russia, voted against it; and one member, China, abstained.
The fact that its own brutal dictatorship compels China to sit on the sidelines as democratic revolutions reform and reshape the Middle East demonstrates, yet again, why – even if it eventually supplants the U.S. as the biggest economy in the world – China will never replace the U.S. as the world’s only indispensable superpower.
(“Libya: UN Approves No-Fly Zone [China Abstains],” The iPINIONS Journal, March 18, 2011)
Well, China is at least consistent. But the real reason for this commentary is to stress that we should never ever abstain from condemning China for its pathological refusal to condemn such acts of territorial aggression, or those of human rights abuse. After all, this refusal merely betrays its Machiavellian determination to preserve the right to behave someday (e.g., with respect to Taiwan or Senkaku Islands) the way Russia is behaving today with respect to Crimea.
Moreover, I maintain that China’s foreign policy is so amoral (or morally bankrupt) that, even if this were a resolution condemning Russia for doing to the Tatars what Germany did to the Jews, the vote would still have been the same; China would have abstained.
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