China urges cooperation after US brands it a competitor

BEIJING: Cooperation between China and the United States will lead to a win-win outcome for both sides, but confrontation will result in mutual losses, China said yesterday, after the United States branded it a competitor seeking to challenge US power.

China hopes the United States can abandon its mentality of zero-sum games and seek common ground while respecting differences, China’s US Embassy said on its website.

“On the basis of mutual respect, China is willing to exist peacefully with other countries including the United States. But the US ought to adapt to and accept China’s development,” it said.

In a new national security strategy based on US President Donald Trump’s “America First” vision on Monday, the United States lumped China and Russia together as competitors

On the basis of mutual respect, China is willing to exist peacefully with other countries including the United States. But the US ought to adapt to and accept China’s development. China’s US Embassy

seeking to erode US security and prosperity.

The singling out of China and Russia as ‘ revisionist powers’ also comes despite Trump’s own attempts to build strong relations with Chinese President Xi Jinping as the two sides seek to rein in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes.

A senior US administration official said Russia and China were attempting to revise the global status quo – Russia in Europe with its military incursions into Ukraine and Georgia, and China in Asia by its aggression in the South China Sea.

Russia denies the allegations that it meddled with the 2016 US presidential election.

China says its expansion of South China Sea islets is for peaceful purposes only.

The US administration also warned that intellectual property theft by China is a national security problem.

Trump made his first visit as president to China last month, where he lauded his meetings on trade and North Korea as ‘very productive’.

Washington has refrained from pushing harder on trade because it needs China’s cooperation on North Korea, though Xi, at least in public when Trump was in Beijing, went no further than reiterating China’s determination to achieve denuclearisation through talks.

China and the United States have also repeatedly clashed over trade issues, including state support for Chinese firms and intellectual property rights violations in China.

On Friday, China’s finance ministry said it would cut export taxes on some steel products and ditch those for sales abroad of steel wire, rod and bars from Jan 1, stirring concern in the United States and Europe that the world’s top steel producer may be looking to sell its excess product abroad.

It follows a ministerial level G20 meeting in Berlin last month, where China and the United States remained at odds over how to tackle excess steel capacity. The global steel sector is worth about US$900 billion a year. — Reuters