China calls on US to take action to improve relations
BEIJING: China’s top diplomat called on the US on Monday to take steps to improve ties, as tensions simmer over Taiwan, trade and other issues.
Foreign minister Wang Yi’s remarks on Monday were delivered virtually to a forum marking the 50th anniversary of the Shanghai Communique signed during the ice-breaking 1972 visit to China by President Richard Nixon. That trip led seven years later to the US and China establishing diplomatic relations, upon which the US cut formal ties with Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory to be brought under its control by force if necessary.
Wang urged Washington to “reinstate a reasonable and pragmatic China policy” and work with China to put their relations on track. He reiterated China’s complaints that the US was not upholding its commitments but didn’t mention any specific steps China would take.
The sides need to view their relations “in the broader perspective, with a more inclusive attitude, and choose dialogue over confrontation, cooperation over conflict, openness over seclusion, and integration over decoupling”, Wang said.
China has been particularly
The United States should truly see China as a partner in the course of development, rather than an adversary, and power games WANG YI, China’s foreign minister
irked by US secretary of state Antony Blinken’s characterisation of ties as “competitive when it should be, collaborative when it can be, adversarial when it must be,” saying the sides should be cooperating across the board, in spite of their differences.
Rapprochement between Washington and Beijing in 1972 was largely drive by their mutual distrust of the Soviet Union. In the decades since, China has grown increasingly close to Moscow, while US-Russia tensions have soared over the war in Ukraine. Taiwan continues to be the main irritant, particularly as successive US administrations have approved arms sales to the island and increased high-level contacts with the democratically elected government in Taipei.