US and NATO being reckless in rejecting talks and a cease-fire to end Ukraine crisis

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg voiced support for Ukraine while talking about the Russia-Ukraine conflict on CNN on Tuesday. Unfortunately, terms such as "peace", "cease-fire", "diplomacy" and "negotiations" were missing from his statements.

But sadly that is the political correctness which NATO, the US and some of its European allies adhere to today. They don't seem to be interested in helping end the conflict which has been going on for nearly 14 months.

The US and NATO have rejected China's recent cease-fire call and opposed its 12-point peace plan to help end the conflict, because they aim to escalate and prolong the conflict by using Ukraine as a pawn in their game to advance their own geopolitical agenda of weakening Russia and undermining Beijing's goal of reunifying the Taiwan island with the motherland.

China has been reiterating that it will make the utmost efforts and show the utmost patience to achieve peaceful reunification, but it won't rule out the use of force to do so if push comes to shove, which should be a warning to the separatist forces on the Chinese island.

When Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said recently that "the US needs to stop encouraging war and start talking about peace, (and) the European Union needs to start talking about peace," the White House leveled an absurd accusation against him — that he is "parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda".

The truth is that except for the US and a number of NATO member states, the vast majority of the countries have been calling for a cease-fire, and advocating dialogue and other diplomatic means to end the conflict, a conflict which has caused untold suffering to not just the people of the two countries but also those in other countries, especially in poor developing nations.

That is why some 150 countries have refused to join the economic sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States and the European Union despite threats and coercion.

Lula is a courageous leader who speaks truth to the hegemonic power while many other leaders have chosen to remain silent despite agreeing with him. On Tuesday, Lula reasserted his call for respecting the territorial integrity of countries while calling for mediation to help end the Ukraine crisis. He has also called for forming a group of countries not involved in the conflict to engage both Russia and Ukraine in talks to help resolve the crisis.

True, countries may not agree on everything, including the cause of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. But not talking to each other and not making any diplomatic efforts to help end the conflict means that more Russians and Ukrainians will die in the coming months.

While the US and NATO have condemned Lula for his peace efforts, French President Emmanuel Macron is "bidding to team up with China for a secret Ukraine peace plan that will bring (Volodymyr) Zelensky and (Vladimir) Putin to the table by the summer", the Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

Like Lula, Macron's efforts to use negotiations and diplomacy to help end the Ukraine crisis have been criticized over the past year by many in the West as appeasement to Russia. This time is no exception.

The US and NATO hope to weaken Russia through a proxy war. But this is mission impossible given that Russia is a major military and nuclear power, and any further escalation of the conflict could result in a wider war.

In fact, leaked Pentagon documents dated from February to March offer a pessimistic US viewpoint about the state of the conflict on the Ukrainian side, highlighting the weakness of its weaponry and air defense, and predicting a stalemate in the conflict for months to come.

The US and many NATO member states are somehow already involved in the conflict by supplying weapons to Ukraine, but it is immediate cease-fire and negotiations, instead of supplying more killer weapons to one side, that will help end the bloodshed and restore peace.

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

chenweihua@chinadaily.com.cn