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BEIJING: The United States should choose dialogue and consultation with China instead of applying “unacceptable” unilateral sanctions against Chinese companies, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday (December 18).
Washington is adding dozens of Chinese companies, including the country’s top chipmaker, SMIC, to a trade blacklist, a move seen as the latest in President Donald Trump’s efforts to cement his tough legacy with China.
The US Commerce Department said the action “stems from China’s civil-military merger doctrine and evidence of activities between SMIC and stakeholders in the Chinese military industrial complex.”
Wang, in a special address to the Asia Society that focused primarily on the state of Sino-US relations, urged the United States to stop “overloading the notion of national security” and “the arbitrary suppression of Chinese companies.”
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“We need to replace sanctions with dialogue and consultations,” he said, adding that unilateral sanctions have become “the biggest destabilizing factor for regional and global security.”
“China is not a threat to the United States, it was not, is not and will not be a threat,” Wang said, although relations were at their lowest point since the establishment of full diplomatic relations in 1979.
Tensions between Washington and Beijing have escalated over the past year as the world’s two major economies clashed over Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak, the imposition of a national security law in Hong Kong, and mounting tensions in the Sea of South China.
Wang also criticized attempts by some US politicians to smear the ruling Communist Party of China, describing them as “irresponsible” accusations without any evidence.
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Comparing Sino-US relations to a “giant ship”, Wang said that the interests of the entire world were at stake. “I think we all agree that the time has come to decide the future course of this ship,” he said, calling for US policy toward China “to return to objectivity and sensitivity as soon as possible.”
Beijing has taken note of the four political priorities of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, who will take office on January 20, Wang added, and believes at least three of them: response to COVID-19, economic recovery and change. climate, provide space for cooperation between the two countries.
