Envoy says NATO statements full of Cold War mentality

China's top envoy to the United Nations on Thursday refuted NATO's "unwarranted attacks and accusations" against China in a recent communique issued during the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.

"The Cold War has long since ended, but the 'ghost' of the Cold War mentality has been hovering over the world," Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the UN, said. He also said the Cold War mentality "intensified global confrontation and conflicts".

Zhang made the remarks at a UN Security Council meeting on Thursday in response to a communique released at the end of the NATO summit on Tuesday, in which the military bloc mentioned China 15 times, saying that "China's stated ambitions and coercive policies challenge our interests, security and values" and that China posed "systemic challenges" to the alliance, Xinhua News Agency reported.

"The communique issued at the meeting is filled with repeated and lengthy statements, rehashing old tunes, full of Cold War mentality and ideological bias. The communique ignores basic facts and makes unwarranted attacks and accusations against China. It is completely backward and hypocritical. China strongly opposes it," Zhang said.

"NATO claims to be a regional organization, why then is NATO reaching beyond its geographical scope laid down in its treaty, making its foray into the Asia-Pacific, bringing more negative impact and destructive factors to regional and global security?

"NATO claims to be a defensive alliance, why then is NATO encouraging member states to ramp up military budgets, keep crossing the line and expanding the mandate, and stoke confrontations?"

He also said NATO claims to defend a "rules-based international order", but it has been ignoring international law and basic norms governing international relations and interfering in other countries' internal affairs.

Zhang emphasized that NATO's accusations against China are groundless. "China is a force for world peace, a contributor to global development, and a defender of the international order," he said.

During the Security Council meeting on the nonproliferation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on Thursday, Zhang also called for the denuclearization of the peninsula, the maintenance of peace and stability in the region, and the pursuit of a political settlement through dialogue.

The Korean Peninsula issue is a legacy of the Cold War that has cast a decadeslong shadow. "It is essentially a political security issue, and the core lies in the lack of a peace mechanism," Zhang said.

During the NATO summit, Ukraine agreed with partner countries on new military aid worth 1.5 billion euros ($1.68 billion), Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Thursday.

On the heels of the summit, US President Joe Biden concluded his visit to Finland on Thursday.

During Biden's visit to Helsinki, demonstrations and marches were held by peace organizations near the Finnish parliament building and the Presidential Palace. Protesters held signs and chanted slogans, accusing the country of fueling wars and demanding NATO cease its disruptive actions in Europe.

Agencies and Xinhua contributed to this story.