Russian minister speaks of harmony with China, no fear of its growing influence

(Interfax – Dec. 9) Russia does not have any concerns about China’s growing political influence, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

“I know that many people have been expressing concerns about this trend. We have no such concerns. We believe that it is always better not to try to restrain the growth of someone’s influence, but to find common ground. In that respect, we have complete mutual understanding with China,” Lavrov said on Sunday (9 December) at a seminar at the National Economy Academy in Moscow involving Vladimir Putin’s authorized representatives (who acted as his election agents during the 2012 presidential election campaign).

Lavrov also said that Russia supports the establishment of a non-bloc system of security in the Asia-Pacific region.

“Russia and China have put forward a joint initiative for a new security architecture process to start in the Asia-Pacific region that will be open and will be based not on blocs, but on the fundamental principles of international law and the indivisibility of security. In that case, no participant would provide its own security at the expense of another participant’s security,” Lavrov said.

(An earlier Interfax report carried further remarks by Lavrov in which he discussed the two countries’ shared vision of international affairs. “We have absolutely identical views on the state of affairs in the world. We stand for the supremacy of law because some countries like talking about the supremacy of law only within states while not taking kindly to the supremacy of law slogan on the international arena. We are convinced that no less attention should be paid to the supremacy of law on the international arena,” Lavrov said. (Interfax news agency, Moscow, in Russian 1246 gmt 9 Dec 12))