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Foreign Minister asks the U.S. to give up pressure tactics, drop Cold War mindset
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has urged the U.S. to abandon fruitless pressure tactics to resolve the trade row between the two countries.
“Regarding trade frictions, China stands for a proper settlement based on rules and consensus through dialogue and consultation on an equal footing. China will not be blackmailed or yield to pressure,” Mr. Wang asserted during his Friday address to the United Nations General Assembly.
‘Hidden agenda’
Chinese state media also slammed what it called the U.S.’s hidden agenda aimed at curtailing China’s rise. Sparks began to fly between China and the U.S. when U.S. President Donald Trump said during a New York press conference that his friendship with Chinese President Xi Jinping maybe fraying. “Maybe he’s not anymore,” Mr. Trump replied after he was asked how he could remain friends with Mr. Xi, in view of the trade war. China has raised tariffs on soya beans, hurting Mr. Trump’s core constituency. Mr. Trump also accused China of trying to meddle in the upcoming U.S. midterm election, evoking an instant rebuttal. In a commentary, the People’s Daily said the U.S. was working on a “interlocking” plan, which also targeted the country’s Made-in-China 2025 blueprint.
“In addition to the additional tariffs on Chinese exports to the United States, the U.S. blocked the ‘Made in China 2025’ Initiative, a campaign to reshape China’s manufacturing edges within 10 years via advanced technologies, sanctioned Chinese telecoms company ZTE, added 44 Chinese entities to its export control list and introduced the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA, and even worse it is targeting China’s defence industry sector this time, all of which can be perceived as interlocking and sharing ‘the same root’,” it said. It added: “Its fundamental purpose is to suppress the development of China’s high-tech and slow down China’s national defence modernisation.”
Full-blown rivalry
Mr. Wang, in a separate meeting with former U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, in New York said that the U.S. must drop is Cold War mindset in dealing with China. The mutation of the trade war into a full-blown geopolitical rivalry also appears to be entering the African theatre. Reuters reported that after years of paying scant attention to the continent’s economic development, Washington is trying to counter China’s pervasive influence. It is doubling its financing to poor countries to $60 billion — the same amount Beijing pledged to Africa earlier this month.
Source : https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-international/china-will-not-be-blackmailed/article25085730.ece
