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China’s top diplomat offered cooperation on President-elect Joe Biden’s key priorities, warning that Beijing’s many American critics were creating an atmosphere of “McCarthyism” and ignoring common interests.
Pointing to President Donald Trump’s aggressive approach, Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed hope that talks and “mutual trust” between the world’s two biggest economic powers will resume after Biden takes office on January 20. .
“It is important that the US policy towards China returns to objectivity and sensitivity as soon as possible,” Wang said in a virtual address to the New York-based Asia Society.
Wang said China saw “room for cooperation” with Biden on three of the four issues it has identified as immediate priorities: Covid-19, economic recovery and climate change. Biden’s stated fourth priority is racial equity.
On the pandemic, Wang said that Beijing and Washington could collaborate in the manufacture of vaccines and help third countries.
“We hope to expand cooperation and manage differences through dialogue,” Wang said.
The Trump administration says decades of America’s engagement with China have failed, accusing Beijing of rampant stealing intellectual property, widespread espionage and coercion of other nations through its bombardment of infrastructure projects.
In recent months, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ended China-funded exchange programs for Americans and tightened visa rules for Chinese students, as well as Communist Party members and their families, likely affecting hundreds of millions of people.
“We see McCarthyism resurface and jeopardize normal international exchanges,” Wang said, referring to the witch-hunt by communists who are supposedly in the US government led by Republican Senator Joe McCarthy after World War II. .
Wang accused unidentified senior US officials of “irresponsible presumption of guilt and emotional onslaught.”
“They ignore the vast common interests and the space for cooperation between the two countries and insist that China is the main threat,” Wang said.
“This is like misaligning buttons on clothing. They are wrong from the beginning. “
– New obstacles to technology –
The Trump administration has shown no signs of easing its tough stance on China as it enters its final month.
On Friday, the Commerce Department said it was placing restrictions on 77 entities that will need special authorization to receive advanced US technology.
The target entities include two prominent universities: the Beijing Institute of Technology, which allegedly sought to secure American items to benefit the Chinese military, and Tianjin University, which was accused of stealing trade secrets.
Four companies were also targeted for helping China map citizens’ DNA, a campaign that activists say is used to control minorities, especially Uighur Muslims.
“China’s corrupt and intimidating behavior both inside and outside its borders harms the national security interests of the United States, undermines the sovereignty of our allies and partners, and violates the human rights and dignity of ethnic and religious minorities,” he said. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
Pompeo separately marked the anniversary of the discovery of the first Covid-19 case in Wuhan to highlight the initial silencing of doctors who sounded the alarm over the disease that has since killed more than 1.6 million people across. the world.
He accused China of continuing to obstruct an investigation into the virus by the World Health Organization, from which Trump ordered the United States to withdraw.
“It is also selling vaccines that lack essential data on safety and efficacy, due to a fundamental disregard for transparency and accountability with respect to clinical trial results,” Pompeo said when the United States began developing mass vaccines after a intense western research.
“Both of these actions put Chinese citizens and the world at risk,” Pompeo said.
Biden, who invested significant time in diplomacy with China as vice president, has generally agreed that Beijing represents a global challenge and has called for a tougher response on human rights.
But he is expected to take a less bellicose tone than Trump, with his candidate for secretary of state Antony Blinken talking about possible cooperation on climate change and the pandemic.
by Shaun Tandon
