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The Ukraine Crisis Raises Questions for the Global South About China’s Foreign Policy

by Cobus van Staden

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has unmasked serious contradictions in China’s foreign policy. In theory it would have triggered China’s staunch opposition to foreign interference in sovereign states.

In reality, the non-intervention principle coexists awkwardly with Beijing’s aversion to Western-led blocs like NATO. The resulting position is contradictory in a way that will be very familiar to African policymakers: Chinese condemnation of ‘Cold War thinking’ that seems, well, rooted in Cold War thinking.

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