On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi held many bilateral diplomatic meetings, with his German, Hungarian and Lebanese counterparts, among others. To Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib, Wang expressed his deep concern over the situation in Lebanon, and strongly condemned Israeli air strikes that have caused high casualties. “We strongly condemn this violation of the basic norms of international relations,” he told Bou Habib. “We will always stand on the side of justice and our Arab brothers, including Lebanon. We … firmly oppose indiscriminate attacks on civilians,” South China Morning Post reported him saying. Bou Habib thanked China for its support.
Wang Yi also participated in the Sept. 24 meeting of the UN Security Council, where Secretary of State Tony Blinken raved against China as the “top provider of machine tools, microelectronics and other items” allegedly empowering Russia’s defense base. But speaking before him, Wang Yi warned that “no party should make the crisis an excuse to abuse unlawful unilateral sanctions and suppress normal trade activities to divide the world. We have played our due role for building consensus and promoting the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis … any move to shift responsibility onto China or attack or smear China is irresponsible and will lead nowhere.” Following his meeting with Wang, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijiarto commented “it is sad for the Chinese and for us to see that some American and European politicians are constantly fueling the tension in the trans-Atlantic region, constantly adding fuel to the fire, which is accompanied by the pro-war mode.”
