On 26 July, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng said during talks with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman
1. The China-US relationship is now in a stalemate and faces serious difficulties. Fundamentally, it is because some Americans portray China as an “imagined enemy". For quite some time, when talking about conflict with China and challenges facing the U.S., the "Pearl Harbor moment" and the “Sputnik moment" have been brought up by some Americans. What does it imply? Some international scholars, including some U.S. academics, perceive this as comparing China to Japan in the Second World War and the Soviet Union in the Cold War. It seems as if by making China an “imagined enemy", a national sense of purpose would be reignited in the U.S.. The hope may be that by demonizing China, the U.S. could somehow shift domestic public discontent over political, economic and social issues and blame China for its own structural problems. It seems that a whole-of-government and whole-of-society campaign is being waged to bring China down. It is as if when China's development is contained, all U.S. domestic and external challenges would go away, and America would become great again and Pax Americana would continue to go on. The U.S. keeps making an issue with China. It's as if the U.S. side has nothing to talk about except about China. We urge the United States to change its highly misguided mindset and dangerous policy.
2. The Chinese people look at things with eyes wide open. They see the competitive, collaborative and adversarial rhetoric as a thinly veiled attempt to contain and suppress China.They feel that the real emphasis is on the adversarial aspect, the collaborative aspect is just an expediency, and the competitive aspect is a narrative trap. U.S. policy seems to be demanding cooperation when it wants something from China; decoupling, cutting off supplies, blockading or sanctioning China when it believes it has an advantage; and resorting to conflict and confrontation at all costs. It seems that the U.S. only thinks about addressing its own concerns, getting the results it wants and advancing its own interests. Do bad things and get good results. How is that ever possible?
3. The U.S. side's so-called “rules-based international order” is an effort by the United States and a few other Western countries to frame their own rules as international rules and impose them on other countries. The United States has abandoned the universally-recognized international law and order and damaged the international system it has helped to build. And it is trying to replace it with a so-called “rules-based international order”. The purpose is to resort to the tactic of changing the rules to make life easy for itself and hard for others, and to introduce “the law of the jungle" where might is right and the big bully the small.
4. The U.S. side to address its own human rights issues first.
Historically, the United States engaged in genocide against Native Americans. Presently, the United States has lost 620,000 lives because of its halting response to COVID-19. Internationally, the frequent U.S. military action and the wars caused by the United States lying about the facts have brought undue catastrophe to the world. How can the United States portray itself as the world's spokesperson for democracy and human rights?
The U.S. side is in no position to lecture China on democracy and human rights. Without the strong leadership of the Communist Party of China, an effective political system and a development path suited to China's circumstances, or if people on the street in China were all denied democracy, freedoms and human rights, how could it be possible for the Chinese people to ever generate such immense creativity and productivity? Without those, how could a super-sized country like China with over a billion people ever achieve the twin miracles of rapid economic growth and sustained social stability? And how could it be possible for the Chinese nation to make the great transformation from standing up to growing rich, and to becoming strong within just a hundred years? Western surveys have shown that over 90 percent of Chinese are satisfied with the Government, which is quite remarkable for any country in the world.
5. What the world needs most is solidarity and cooperation, for humanity are passengers in the same boat. The Chinese people cherish peace. What China hopes to build is a new type of international relations featuring mutual respect, equity, justice and win-win cooperation, and a community with a shared future for mankind. China wants to work with the United States to seek common ground while shelving the differences. The U.S. side needs to change course and work with China on the basis of mutual respect and embrace fair competition and peaceful coexistence with China. After all, a healthy and stable China-U.S. relationship serves the interests of both sides. And the world expects nothing less from the two sides.
6. The Chinese believe that one must not do to others what one does not like to be done to himself. Desire to seek hegemony or territorial expansion is simply not in the Chinese DNA. And China has never coerced any country. China responds to foreign interference with legitimate and lawful countermeasures. The aim is to defend the legitimate rights and interests of the country and uphold international equity and justice. China has never gone to others' doorsteps to provoke trouble. Neither has China ever stretched its arm into the households of others, still less has China ever occupied any inch of other countries' territory. It is the United States, not anybody else, who is the inventor, and patent and intellectual property owner of coercive diplomacy. It is the United States who has engaged in broad unilateral sanctions, long-arm jurisdiction and interference in other countries' internal affairs. The U.S. notion of “engaging other countries from a position of strength" is just another version of the big bullying the small and “might is right”. This is pure coercive diplomacy.
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