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The Chinese ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, in a long and wide-ranging interview with a journalist on the French television news channel LCI, about world and Chinese affairs, stated, in response to a question as to whether or not Crimea was a part of Ukraine, that ‘it depended on how one looks at the history of the situation,” and that Crimea was Russian for a long time and only given to Ukraine during the Soviet era.” He then added: “Even these ex-Soviet countries don’t have an effective status in international law because there was no international agreement to materialize their status as sovereign countries.” Both these statements caused an angry reaction…

With the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the United States and its NATO allies, firstly, regarded themselves victorious in the post-World War II conflict, and secondly, set a course for the formation of a unipolar world order under United States hegemony. Russia, as the successor of the Soviet Union, during the difficult 1990s-2000s of the transition period, was in fact unable to oppose the American course with its own autonomous strategy. The situation was aggravated by the “parade of sovereignty”…

The special military operation in Ukraine has served as a watershed moment in the evolution of new international relations. The West, led by the United States, was able to rally behind the imposition of unprecedentedly broad sanctions against Russia. At the same time, our adversaries applied immense strain on emerging economies, coercing them to align with their efforts against Russia. However, the global power balance has shifted. The countries of the so-called “Global South” wish to live and act freely and autonomously, defending their own interests. Washington’s diktat is becoming increasingly bothersome, which is not surprising given that emerging countries want to establish their lives according to their own norms, with no outside guidance…