Beijing (AFP) – China’s foreign minister on Friday vowed Beijing would “firmly counter” US pressure, after Donald Trump heaped tariffs on Chinese goods and torched off a trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Trump imposed more blanket tariffs on Chinese imports this week, following a similar move last month — levies expected to hit hundreds of billions of dollars in total trade.
The mercurial magnate has overturned the international order since returning to office in January, from pushing Ukraine to seek a peace deal with Russia to floating a widely condemned plan to relocate Palestinians from Gaza. At a press conference on the sidelines of a key political meeting, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi framed Beijing as a bulwark of stability in an unstable world. He warned the “law of the jungle” could take hold if nations were to pursue purely their own interests.
Wang touted Beijing’s cooperation with the United States in the fight against the fentanyl epidemic, in which Washington has accused China of being complicit in justifying its tariffs. Washington should not “repay kindness with resentment, let alone impose tariffs without reason”, he said. “There are around 190 countries in the world,” Wang said. “Imagine if every country emphasised their own priority and believed in strength and status, the world would fall back into the law of the jungle.” He said the policy currently implemented by Washington was “not how a responsible major country behaves”.
The Chinese top diplomat was speaking on the sidelines of the “Two Sessions” political meetings in Beijing, so far clouded by a new administration in the United States that is overturning the international order. He told the attending press that good China-US economic and trade ties benefitted all parties. “If you choose to cooperate, you can achieve mutually beneficial and win-win results,” he added. “If you use only pressure, China will firmly counter.” “China and the United States will both exist on this planet for a long time, so they must coexist peacefully,” Wang stressed.
– ‘No winners’ in war –
The veteran diplomat, however, appeared to side with Trump’s push for peace talks to end the conflict in Ukraine. He also called for negotiations between all parties — warning “conflict has no winners, and peace has no losers”. Beijing, he stressed, “welcomes and supports all efforts dedicated to peace”. And he urged all parties to seek a “comprehensive and lasting ceasefire in Gaza and increase humanitarian assistance”.
Beijing has vowed to fight a trade war with the United States “to the end” as tariffs from Washington buffeted the global economy and threatened to hit Beijing’s lagging growth. The country’s leaders set an ambitious annual growth target of around five percent this week, vowing to make domestic demand its main economic driver as the escalating trade confrontation with the United States hit exports. They also raised the country’s military budget by 7.2 percent as Beijing’s armed forces undergo rapid modernisation and eye deepening strategic competition with the United States.
– Taiwan, South China Sea –
Among key flashpoints in the past year have been the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which Beijing claims. Wang on Friday said the island’s return to Beijing’s control remained the “shared hope of all Chinese people, the general trend of the time, and a righteous cause”. “Using Taiwan to control China is just like trying to stop a car with the arm of a mantis,” he said.
And he touched on another key flashpoint, the South China Sea — which Beijing claims almost in its entirety despite an international arbitration ruling that declared its stance baseless. Wang accused the Philippines, with which Chinese ships have repeatedly clashed in the disputed waters, of provoking confrontation. “For every Philippine maritime operation, it is the forces outside of the region that write the script and the Western media that undertake the live broadcast,” he said. “The same old theatre is being used to discredit China,” he said.
© 2024 AFP
