Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, commenting at a briefing on media reports about NATO’s plans to call China a “systematic challenge” in its new strategic concept, called on the alliance to abandon provocative statements about Beijing.
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“We demand that NATO immediately stop spreading false and provocative statements that are directed against China,” the diplomat said.
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Zhao Lijian believes that NATO is a product of the Cold War, with the help of which some states are trying to “preserve their hegemony” by creating “imaginary enemies” for this.
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“NATO has long adhered to outdated security concepts. The alliance has long become a tool for maintaining the hegemony of individual countries,” said a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
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Zhao Lijian advised the countries of the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon the Cold War mentality, zero-sum games and the search for imaginary enemies. The diplomat stressed that the military bloc had already “made a mess in Europe” and urged not to make a similar mess in Asia and other regions of the world.
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Earlier it was reported that in the new strategic concept of NATO, adopted at the summit in Madrid, it is planned to recognize Russia as a “direct threat”, and China as a “systemic challenge” for the alliance.