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US demonising China to build national purpose: Chinese diplomat
US and China are holding talks in the backdrop of tension over wide-ranging issues including human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Tibet, Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong and US’ ties with Taiwan.
A top Chinese diplomat on Monday took a combative tone during rare face-to-face talks with a US counterpart, saying Washington’s strategy of confrontation and cooperation with Beijing was a thinly veiled attempt to contain and suppress China.
The China-US ties are in a stalemate, fundamentally because some Americans portray China as an “imaginary enemy”, Chinese vice foreign minister, Xie Feng told deputy secretary of state, Wendy Sherman, the second-ranked US diplomat, during their meeting in Tianjin, a city some 100km from Beijing.
The US’ “competitive, collaborative and adversarial” rhetoric is a thinly veiled attempt to contain and suppress China - the real emphasis is on the adversarial aspect, the collaborative aspect is just expediency, and the competitive aspect is a narrative trap, Xie said in an unusually bellicose statement shared by the Chinese foreign ministry and official media after the meeting.
Amid worsening relations between the world’s two largest economies, Sherman arrived on Sunday for the face-to-face meetings in Tianjin.
If the meeting between the diplomats was expected to be a measure of the state of ties between the two global powers, then Xie’s statements were unambiguous - Sino-US ties are deeply acrimonious on a range of issues. “The US wants to reignite the sense of national purpose by establishing China as an ‘imaginary enemy’,” Xie said.
The US has mobilised its government and society to suppress China, he added.
Washington’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, Xie added.
Referring to US-Japan ties during the Second World War and ties with the former Soviet Union during the long-drawn Cold War, Xie said that for quite some time, when talking about conflict with China and challenges facing the US, the “Pearl Harbour moment” and the “Sputnik moment” have been brought up by some Americans.
The hope may be that by demonising China, the US could somehow shift domestic public discontent over political, economic and social issues and blame China for its own structural problems, he said. “It seems that the US 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?” Xie said.
The US 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, Xie added
The talks took place in the backdrop of tension between the two countries over wide-ranging issues including alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Tibet, Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong and US’s ties with self-ruled Taiwan, which China sees as interference in its internal matters.
Chinese President Xi Jinping had warned US counterpart Joe Biden that confrontation between China and the US will be disastrous for both countries and the world in their first phone call in February after the latter became president in January.
