MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/. The possibility of creating a military bloc with China or India as a counterbalance to NATO is not being looked at in Russia, since such an idea would "revive the Cold War formula" and is not in the interests of humankind, a senior Russian lawmaker said on Friday.
"I am often asked why Russia doesn’t create some sort of ‘anti-NATO’ with China or any other big military power, say, with India. I would like to stress that this is not a topic on our agenda. We are not discussing any issues linked with establishing a military union either with China or with India," Konstantin Kosachev, deputy speaker of Russia’s Federation Council (upper parliament house), said in an interview with the Govorit Moskva radio station.
Kosachev believes this is a prudent position. "In theoretical terms, if it becomes our strategy and we begin to create some kind of 'anti-NATO' or 'anti-European Union,' even if this idea is implemented, we will only revive the bi-polar world, the Cold War formula, where one bloc opposes another," he noted, adding that such a formula can be sustainable.
"One center of power balances the other, but this formula is not in the interests of humankind. The Cold War was an era when, containing each other, we, willingly or unwillingly, seriously impeded the development of humankind by putting spokes in each other’s wheels. That is why I think that it is the institutionalization of a multipolar world that should be a real strategy for our country," he stressed.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview with the PBS television channel on June 13 that Russia and China were developing closer cooperation. Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said earlier that NATO was bringing neither peace nor stability but rather destabilizing the situation in those regions where it was present. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin stated that China and other Asian countries were against creating any military blocs in the region and would not allow "any cold or hot war" to be unleashed there.