Sergey Lavrov’s article ‘History Lessons and New Frontiers’ has been published in Russian Rossiyskaya Gazeta and the Chinese People’s Daily along with a piece by China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
“Today we see barefaced craving to falsify the history of war (WWII) and equalize victims and slaughterers. This urge does not only revolt feelings of our people, but also undermines the basis of the modern world order perpetuated in the United Nations’ Statute,” Lavrov wrote.
It is highly important that Russia and China present a united front in persistently presenting the historical truth, Lavrov stressed, paying special attention to the significance of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia on the Victory Day and the march of Chinese soldiers on Red Square during the celebrations.
In the modern turbulent political situation with swelling crisis developments, history lessons should not be forgotten in order to avoid vital errors in the future, Russian FM noted.
“World’s fate cannot be defined by a single state of small group of states,” said Lavrov, adding that the rejection of this simple rules and desire for the world domination lead to tragic mistakes like the bombing of the former Yugoslavia, occupation of Iraq, chaos in Libya and civil war in Ukraine.
Both Russia and China, on the winning side in WWII, are “stalwart opponents of imposing one’s will over sovereign states, including by force, introducing unilateral sanctions and practicing policy of double standards as such.”
Lavrov declared the current Russian-Chinese relations “the best in history.”
Russia and China have coinciding points of view regarding currently forming polycentric world, based on the international law and respect to peoples’ right of choosing development means independently. Relations of China and Russia are based on true friendship, deep mutual respect and trust, as well as consideration of mutual key interests, Lavrov stressed.
Moscow intends to continue moving forward hand in hand with China to ensure they are “reaching new historic frontiers for the wellbeing of our people” and “in the name of assuring ideals of justice and equality on the international arena.
“Inherently, this is about state-to-state relations of a new type, a kind of cooperation model in the 21st century, Lavrov underlined, expressing confidence that the visit of the Russian president to China in early September would give yet another powerful momentum to strategic partnership of the two countries.
Vladimir Putin has been invited to take part in China’s celebration of 70th anniversary of the defeat of occupying Japan in WWII on September 3.