MOSCOW, May 15. /TASS/. French President Emmanuel Macron and other Western leaders will have to come to terms with the fact that Russia and China enjoy close, equal and mutually respectful relations , Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said in a commentary on Monday.
"Obviously, the steadily strengthening, time-tested, self-sufficient and non-confrontational relations of strategic partnership between our countries are no solace to Paris. <…> But in the current environment, Macron as well as other Western leaders will have to put up with the reality of close, equal and mutually respectful relations between Moscow and Beijing as a factor whose significance and influence on international relations will only grow," he said, commenting on Macron’s allegations that Russia is growing dependent on China.
According to the senior diplomat, the West cannot kick its bad habit of "turning old friends against each other by any means, setting one country against the other," "twisting the arm of states of the global South and East so that they forget their own national interests for the sake of the geopolitical ambitions of the former ‘masters of the world."
"This is exactly the context in which we take the French president’s remarks about relations between Russia and China," he stressed.
"The West is scared by the emergence of a multilateral system of international relations with a range of independent centers, such as Russia and China, which is happening before our very eyes," he noted. "This emerging new world order means the end to the centuries-long dominance of the golden billion countries. Hence, we see attempts if not to stop but at least to contain this process and here all means are good.".