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China for new thinking on security

MANILA: China on Thursday condemned the continued prevalence of “Cold War mentality” in some quarters and hailed the Association of South East Asian Nations’ Regional Forum (ARF) as a “non-aligned” grouping.

The ARF, a security-dialogue forum, consists of China, the U.S., Russia, India, Japan, and others including Australia and Pakistan. At the fourteenth ARF annual meeting in Manila, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi equated the ARF with Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) that links China with Russia and some Central Asian states. Both India and Pakistan are observers in the SCO.

Advocating “a new thinking on security, rooted in mutual respect and equality” among states, Mr. Yang said: “The ARF and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which are non-aligned [and] not targeted at any third country, do not define friend and foe on ideological ground.” These two entities “are good examples of the new thinking on security.” Noting that the Asia Pacific region had, since the end of the Cold War, “enjoyed relative peace in diversity,” he said the old thinking was based on “mutual suspicion, raw power, and [the] imposing [of] one’s own values and ideologies on others.” These comments acquire importance in the context of efforts to fashion a U.S.-India-Japan-Australia forum of democracies and militaries.

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