China, US should ‘work with each other’
Chinese envoy urges constructive rather than confrontational ties between both nations
Cui Tiankai, China’s ambassador to the United States, said that the common interests and mutual needs of China and the US always outweigh whatever differences they might have.
Cui made the comment in an interview with former US treasury secretary Hank Paulson on the podcast Straight Talk with Hank Paulson. The interview was conducted on Aug 28 and aired on Sept 14. It touched on Cui’s career and relations between China and the US.
Cui worked on a farm in China for five years, served as an interpreter at the United Nations in New York and studied at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He has been China’s ambassador to the US for more than seven years.
Discussing China’s foreign policy, Cui said that it “has been clear from the very beginning that we want to have a constructive and cooperative rather than confrontational relationship with the United States”.
“We want to base ourselves on mutual respect, mutual understanding and hopefully, mutual accommodation with the aim of mutual benefit. That has been the essence of our policy all along, ever since (former US) president Nixon and Doctor (Henry) Kissinger visited China” in 1972, Cui told Paulson.
Looking back at the past 40-plus years, Cui said the China-US bilateral relationship has changed a great deal: “It has expanded, it has deepened and it has gotten more complicated, more comprehensive and more complex.”
He said one of the expanded cooperative efforts was the G20 leaders’ summits that began in response to the 2008 global financial crisis.
He pointed out that neither China nor the US can handle many global issues, such as climate change and international terrorism, by itself.
“It is the expectation of the international community that China and the United States should work with each other, not against each other, on these global challenges,” Cui said.
There is no question that differences exist between China and the US, Cui said. “We have to recognize that there will always be differences between us because we are two different countries with very different historical heritages, different cultures and different political and economic systems. But we have to manage the differences in a constructive way.”
When it comes to issues such as the situation across the Taiwan Straits and in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Hong Kong and the South China Sea, Cui said those are a matter of sovereignty, territorial integrity and national unity. “Sometimes we just don’t believe these issues should become issues between our two countries. They are internal issues for China,” he said.
Despite disputes over those issues, Cui said the two nations have managed these quite well over the years.
“But now the current situation is making us very concerned and even alarmed. There are some clear attempts in this country to cross what people call the red line with very serious consequences,” he said of the US. “So, I hope people can really draw experience and good lessons from the past few decades.”
With China introducing new measures to open up its various sectors, foreign companies will have better access, better opportunities and certainly greater predictability, he said.
“But at the same time, what is very challenging for us is that while we are trying to be more open to the rest of the world, some people in other parts of the world are trying to raise barriers to us. They are raising barriers for TikTok, WeChat and Huawei. This is a real challenge for us. We are trying to open our door wider, but they are building walls. They’re raising barriers. What should we do?” Cui asked.
He also pointed out that both China and the US were mindful of each other’s national security concerns while they developed mutual ties and deepened and widened relations. The national security of neither China nor the US was hurt in the process but actually was helped, Cui said.
Cui warned that the two countries need to be careful not to be misled or trapped by groundless fears, suspicions or even hatred.
“I don’t think that will make anybody safe. That will make everybody less secure. This is just against the need for national security,” he said.
Cui said he is optimistic for the future of the bilateral relationship. “It will move forward. It will be stabilized, especially in the next few months, and with more efforts, we can open up new opportunities for further cooperation.” he said.