Washington/Beijing: the will to hunt hegemony or territorial expansion is “simply not within the Chinese DNA”, Chinese Vice secretary of state Xie Feng told his American counterpart, Wendy Sherman, on Monday.
Xie Feng’s remarks came at a gathering with visiting US Deputy Secretary of State Sherman in China’s northeastern port city of Tianjin to debate ways to line terms for the “responsible management” of the strained ties between Beijing and Washington.
Xie Feng said that the China-US relationship is now during a stalemate and faces serious difficulties. Fundamentally, it’s because some Americans portray China as an “imagined enemy”, he said.
“It seems as if by making China an “imagined enemy”, a national sense of purpose would be reignited within the US,” he said.
The Chinese believe that one must not do to others what one doesn’t wish to be done to himself, Xie Feng told Wendy Sherman.
“The desire to hunt hegemony or territorial expansion is just not within the Chinese DNA. 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 impress 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,” Xie Feng told Wendy Sherman.
Xie Feng’s statement comes amid growing concerns within the Indo-Pacific region on China’s aggressive actions and territorial disputes with neighbouring countries, including India.
In Washington, the US Department of State said Wendy Sherman and Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi had a frank and open discussion a few range of issues, demonstrating the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between our two countries.
“They discussed ways to line terms for responsible management of the US-China relationship. The Deputy Secretary underscored that the us welcomes the stiff competition between our countries – which we shall still strengthen our own competitive hand – but that we don’t seek conflict with the People’s Republic of China (PRC),” the statement said.
Sherman raised concerns privately a few “range of PRC actions that run counter to our values and interests and people of our allies and partners, which undermine the international rules-based order”, it said.
In particular, she raised America’s concerns about human rights abuses, including Beijing’s anti-democratic crackdown in Hong Kong; the continued genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang; abuses in Tibet; and therefore the curtailing of media access and freedom of the press.
She also spoke about our concerns about Beijing’s conduct in cyberspace; across the Taiwan Strait; and within the East and South China Seas, the handout said.
Sherman also reiterated concerns about China’s unwillingness to cooperate with the planet Health Organization and permit a second phase investigation within the PRC into COVID-19’s origins.
At an equivalent time, she affirmed the importance of cooperation in areas of worldwide interest, like the climate crisis, counternarcotics, nonproliferation, and regional concerns including North Korea , Iran, Afghanistan and Myanmar, it said.
Sherman is that the most senior US official to go to China in months. President Joe Biden has taken a hard-line approach towards China, especially on issues like human rights and sanctions.
Her visit is being viewed as a preparatory step for the primary meeting with Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.
Meanwhile, the Chinese foreign ministry’s handout acknowledged that Xie Feng told Sherman that by demonising China, the US could somehow shift domestic public discontent over political, economic and social issues and blame Beijing for its own structural problems.
The US keeps making a problem with China. it’s as if the US side has nothing to speak about except about China. We urge the us to vary its highly misguided mindset and dangerous policy, the discharge quoted Xie Feng as saying.
“It is that the us , not anybody else, who is that the ‘inventor, and patent and property owner of coercive diplomacy’,” he said.
“It is that the us who has engaged in broad unilateral sanctions, long-arm jurisdiction and interference in other countries” internal affairs,” Xie Feng said.
The US notion of “engaging other countries from an edge of strength” is simply another version of the large bullying the tiny and “might is right”. this is often pure coercive diplomacy, the senior Chinese diplomat added.
