US too negative on China – diplomat
BEIJING: A top Chinese diplomat said the US policy toward China is “too negative” and that cooperation could be critically important as the Biden administration focuses on combating Covid-19 and promoting economic recovery.
The US appears to be highlighting confrontation and playing down cooperation, Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said in a wideranging interview with The Associated Press. “Such an approach, I must say, is too negative,” he said, adding that it lacks “a forwardlooking spirit.”
China could be a partner as Biden tackles the coronavirus and the economy, he said. “To me it is hard to imagine the two priorities can be resolved without a cooperative and healthy China-US relationship,” he said.
Le also signaled that China is unlikely to make any new pledges at a climate change meeting called by President Joe Biden for next week. He spoke as Biden’s climate
envoy, John Kerry, was discussing the issue on the second day of closed-door meetings with Chinese counterparts in Shanghai.
Chinese President Xi Jinping announced last year that China would be carbon-neutral by 2060 and aim to reach a peak in its emissions by 2030.
“For a big country with 1.4 billion people, these goals are not easily delivered,” Le said. “Some countries are asking China to achieve the goals earlier. I am afraid this is not very realistic.” Le said he had no details on the Kerry meetings in Shanghai.
Biden has invited 40 world leaders, including Xi, to an April 22 and 23 virtual climate summit. The US and other countries are expected to announce more ambitious national targets for cutting emissions and pledge financial help for climate efforts by less wealthy nations.
Le said that China would convey a positive message at the meeting but added that China is responding to climate change on its own initiative, not because others asked it to. On whether Xi would join the summit, Le said “the Chinese side is actively studying the matter.”
The US and China are increasingly at odds over a range of issues, including human rights in Tibet and the Xinjiang region, a crackdown on protest and political freedom in Hong Kong, China’s assertion of its territorial claims to Taiwan and most of the South China Sea and accusations Beijing was slow to inform the world about the Covid-19 outbreak that became a devastating pandemic.
China hoped for an improvement in relations under Biden, who succeeded President Donald Trump in January, but the new administration has shown no sign of backing down on hardline policies toward China. The two sides traded sharp and unusually public barbs at the start of talks in Alaska last month.
Le said that after the opening of the Alaska talks, the dialogue was constructive and useful and that both sides are following up on the issues discussed.
The two countries could team up on coronavirus response, he said, but any cooperation must be on an equal basis, an apparent reference to the US pressure on China on multiple fronts.
“It is not one side drawing up a laundry list of demands to the other side,” Le said. “In cooperation, one should not be selfish and care only about one’s own interests with no regard for the well-being of the other side.”
On the same day that a number of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists were sentenced, Le defended China’s crackdown on protest in the semi-autonomous territory. He described the convicted as rioters and said “they deserve what they got.”