Working together, China and EU can improve ties

The intensifying Ukraine crisis and Israel-Palestine conflict have heightened tensions, eroded trust and raised the risk of a nuclear war. The world has come to such a pass because of the use of force and threat by some major powers on the pretext of safeguarding national security.

History tells us that the use of force or threat increases distrust and unilateral sanctions cause mutual harm, instead of resolving disputes. China believes that the security of one country cannot be safeguarded by jeopardizing other countries' security. That's why, together with Brazil, it proposed a six-point plan and established a "Friends for Peace" group to help end the Russia-Ukraine conflict. On Gaza, China has been calling for a permanent cease-fire and full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian enclave, emphasizing that the two-state solution is the best way to restore peace in the region.

These chaotic developments have made it all the more difficult for the world to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Worse, much of the gains of poverty alleviation has been lost. The World Bank estimates that the COVID-19 pandemic pushed about 70 million people into poverty in 2020, the largest one-year increase since global monitoring began in 1990. As a result, about 719 million people subsisted on less than $2.15 a day by the end of 2020.