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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Photo/REUTERS
BEIJING – The United States is being challenged not by China, but by the US's unwillingness to accept that other large countries might be able to match it.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi confirmed this on Thursday (7/3/2024).
“Relations between major countries should be based on mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation,” said the foreign minister, who is also in charge of foreign policy in the Chinese Communist Party, at a press conference in Beijing. But Washington appears unwilling to adhere to these principles.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden agreed to ease trade tensions during their meeting last November, but Washington failed to deliver, according to Wang.
The talks in San Francisco have eased tensions that had built up throughout the year. Relations between Washington and Beijing have soured in part over alleged “spy balloons” and American restrictions on exports of high-tech chips to China.
“On the US side, misperceptions of China still exist, and US promises are not actually being fulfilled,” the senior official said. “Methods to pressure China are constantly being updated, and the list of unilateral sanctions is constantly expanding.”
He explained, “In its efforts to accuse China of wrongdoing, the US has reached “an incredible level of absurdity.”
”If the United States says one thing and does another, where is its credibility as a great country? If this country gets nervous every time it hears the word 'China', then where is the country's self-confidence as a big country?” Wang asked rhetorically.
He said the US wants to monopolize the “high end of the value chain”, keeping other countries down rather than accepting their legitimate desire for economic development.
Such an approach is not how healthy competition works, he said.
“The challenge for the United States comes from itself, not from China. “If the United States is obsessed with bullying China, it will ultimately harm itself,” Wang warned.
“The US must mend its ways and act rationally when dealing with China, because the future of the world depends on how the two countries treat each other,” concluded the diplomat.
(she)