Thread by @fbermingham

Borrell's address at #MSC2022 titled: "what to do when Russia and China try to re-define terms"

Russ-China statement Feb 4 "is an act of defiance. It is clear: revisionist manifesto. A manifesto to review the world order."

eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/h…

"Re-defining democracy is a major plank in their revisionist drive. They talk about ‘genuine democracy’. Adding qualifying adjectives reminds us of Soviet times when communist regimes were talking of ‘people’s democracy’ or “organic democracies” in Franco’s Spain."

"Democracy, they say, should be implemented ‘to suit national conditions’. We're told ‘China and Russia, as major countries with long-standing history & culture, have profound traditions of democracy rooted in thousands of years of experience of development.’

"This isn't a semantic discussion but a political one. We see every day how in multilateral orgs there's a battle about universality of human rights. Authoritarian powers – not just Russia and China – seek to relativise notion of individual rights"

"Russia and China are the ones who want to go back, to the 19C, the fight of empires. And Russia and China becoming more and more assertive, willing to restore the old empires that they have been in the past. We move forward with the 21C- with the lessons we learned in the 20C"

"In conclusion, the UN and the wider multilateral system has two legs: the fundamental equality of states plus recognition of their sovereignty and the pursuit of common goals with the recognition of the rights of all human beings."

"If you take second leg away, and you only have a look at the first one, you are only left with state sovereignty. And that would mean taking away the progress we made in the last 75 yrs. That’s why we must resist this Russian-Chinese revisionist drive to re-define the terms"