【Editor's Note】This article is authorized by the founder of the Great Diplomatic Think Tank to authorize the "Qin'an Strategy" headline platform to be published exclusively and originally, and reprinted from the public account "Kuzhi Jiaotong University". The author, Wang Zhen, is a retired diplomat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People's Republic of China to Venezuela and Uruguay, a former vice president of the Chinese-People Diplomacy Society, a former vice president and secretary general of the China Foundation for International Studies, and a senior adviser to the China Society for International Strategic Studies. In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he served as Deputy Director of the Western European Division, Counsellor of the Policy Research Office, and Deputy Director of the Latin America Division. He has worked in the Chinese embassies in Equatorial Guinea, Spain, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela, and has served as second secretary, first secretary, political counsellor, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary.
The Russian-Ukrainian war has been going on for more than 40 days, the battlefield has been stopped and stopped, the negotiations have talked about changes, and the glue has been delayed, and there is no end in sight. Europe in the "cracks" is very awkward, very embarrassed, very entangled, do not know where the road is.
Europe needs peace, it longs for peace, because it suffers from two world wars and has a strong war-weariness, war-fearing and anti-war mentality. Now the flames of war are burning around us, if there is an overflow, Europe will bear the brunt of it, the society and the people's psychology will be unbearable, and the devastating damage that the achievements of economic and social development in the past 80 years will be even more unimaginable.
Europe wants a ceasefire to stop the war, but is powerless to stop it from continuing, because the decision to fight peace is not in their hands. And "common values" are like a magic chain, which binds them tightly to the chariot of the "trans-ocean boss", is wrapped up by it, is driven by it, does not distinguish things, and although it is also running for peace and promotion, it still follows the United States behind ukraine to provide weapons and equipment for "great lethality", adding fuel to the fire and running in the opposite direction of the desire for peace.
Europe wants security, but does not know the true meaning of security, and still pins its hopes for its own security on the product of the Cold War - the bloc represented by NATO has resisted politics and expanded eastward for 5 consecutive times, forcing Russia into a corner. Although there have been different voices in recent years, the overall policy has not changed, and the realistic possibility of Ukraine joining NATO has become the fuse of war. Without addressing the correct understanding of the concept of security, taking into account the security concerns of all parties including Russia and Ukraine, and building a balanced, effective and sustainable European security architecture, European security issues will always be a castle in the air. At present, some European insightful people have some understanding of this, but they are not yet able to change the obsession of the group.
Europe to develop, to survive, in general hope and Russia peaceful coexistence, in addition to geopolitical factors, economic interdependence makes it difficult for Europe to completely decouple from Russia, only to take energy and food as an example, Russia's share of the European consumer market is difficult to replace. 40% of the natural gas needed in Europe, 1/3 of the crude oil comes from Russia, wheat mainly depends on Russia, sanctions against Russia, of course, can find another alternative, but far from the water can not quench the near thirst, two years of gas and oil, enough to make the people of European countries upside down. Therefore, European countries have strongly disagreed on the russian energy embargo, but the United States is "full of men regardless of hunger and hunger", insisting on going its own way, and Europe is very embarrassed.
Europe wants to be independent and self-reliant, and the EU has formed an "alliance" in order to unite and strengthen itself. The older generation represented by De Gaulle, the Mesozoic generation represented by Merkel, and the new generation of leaders represented by Macron all have a relatively strong sense of independence and self-determination and a clear idea of "building a European Europe", and even made the assertion that "the West in the traditional sense has declined", "the United States is no longer our ally", "NATO is no longer a practical need", and put forward the idea of "establishing a European army" to replace NATO. NATO's European members have resisted the United States' long-standing demand that they raise military spending to 2 percent of gross national product. As soon as the War between Russia and Ukraine began, the United States fanned the flames, exaggerated the danger of "all-out war," intimidated Europe, and forced it to hold the thighs of the United States. Although there are still differences between Europe and the United States, at least the United States has achieved the purpose of weakening Europe's tendency to "detach from the United States" and making it closer to the United States.
While striving to protect itself and maneuvering around all sides, Europe, which was originally an important pole in the world, fell into a crack and lost itself for a while in the midst of emergency war. What is the way out for Europe? At a critical juncture, China once again sincerely suggested to the European side: The more critical the moment, the more it is necessary to keep a sober mind, persist in making judgments independently and autonomously, persist in persuading peace and promoting talks, persist in building lasting peace in Europe and Eurasia, persist in maintaining the stability of the world economic system, rules and foundations, and work with China to provide some stability factors for the turbulent world situation. Europe should independently recognize the situation, make a decision at the moment, stand on the right side of history, shoulder its due responsibilities, and play its due role.