The US State Department announced sanctions Thursday against the Ministry of Equipment and Development of China’s Central Military Commission, citing China’s purchase of 10 Russian-made SU-35 fighter jets in 2017 and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems in 2018. State officials told the media anonymously the same day that the sanctions against Chinese institutions are actually targeted at Russia, not China and the Chinese military.
On Friday, the Chinese foreign ministry expressed “strong indignation” at the US practice and urged the US to immediately lift the so-called sanctions.
This is the first time that the United States has imposed sanctions on important departments and senior generals of the Chinese military, setting a very bad precedent. Although the United States stated that its real goal is Russia, its sanctions have directly targeted the Chinese military. This will undoubtedly have a negative impact on the exchanges between the two armies. The contact and communication between the two armies is of great significance to peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.
America’s recklessness and arrogance in the past two years has grown more and more circular, with the sanctions Baton wielding like a traffic policeman’s baton. Whatever international law, multilateral system, Washington has ignored. It only wants to deal with the world in accordance with U.S. domestic law. It equates U.S. domestic law with international law. I will punish whoever is inconsistent with me.
It may also want to intimidate India and Turkey by imposing sanctions on Chinese troops. It has been a big buyer of Russian weapons, and Turkey last year agreed to buy an S-400 anti-aircraft missile system.
The United States is fundamentally overthrowing the principles on which the international order is based and using its power to forcibly reshape international rules into a system that serves United States interests exclusively. The “American priority” is pushing forward, and Washington is willing to take some increasingly provocative and even risky steps to this end.
Of course, the Chinese will not accept the United States ‘attempt to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over China. No matter what the US thinks, it violates China’s rights and interests. We will make a moderate and resolute counterattack depending on the situation. Other countries will not be indifferent to the fact that the United States damages its own interests. The willingness and actual cooperation between the whole world and the United States will inevitably decrease. The United States will eventually pay the biggest bill.
China and Russia are two major countries. They have imposed a ban on certain exchanges between China and Russia. At the same time, they have roared and waved big sticks against China and Russia. This is strategically naive and arrogant, and it is contrary to the basic common knowledge of the strategic triangle.
The United States sanctions on the Central military commission’s equipment development department and its leaders, mainly public opinion and psychological warfare, can play a limited practical role. The United States does not sell any equipment for the Chinese army. The Chinese army will continue to buy weapons from Russia in the future. It can not control it. Therefore, in a certain sense, its sanctions against the Chinese army are paper.
We are angry that how can Washington so casually announce sanctions against the Chinese army? Their attitude contains a dangerous lack of seriousness. Such irresponsibility in dealing with the relations between the two great powers and the two armies, an incredible recklessness, and an obsession with self-force, are all grossly incompatible with the political law that the more superpowers have to be more disciplined and cautious.
It will not encourage the United States to announce sanctions against important departments of the People’s Liberation Army. Beijing may not be willing to make a high-profile announcement about what it will do. After all, the US also said that the move is not aimed at China. But Washington will feel the Chinese “unhappy”.
It’s like driving a bigger pickup truck, speeding up the city streets, running through red lights and scraping other vehicles. He used his head, speed and honking his horn to scare the traffic and everyone on the street. It threatens everyone, but it doesn’t have to be complacent. Because it is itself that is really dangerous. If it goes on like this, it will not hit the wall, but it will have to turn into a ditch.
