China's Foreign Minister Qin Gang speaks at a press conference at the annual National People’s Congress.
China’s Foreign Minister took aim at the United States on Tuesday, accusing Washington of seeking to contain China and equating U.S. arms sales to Taiwan with potential Chinese military aid to Russia.
Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the annual National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp parliament, Qin Gang said the U.S. had a “severely distorted” perception of China.
“It’s like the first button of a shirt being done up wrong, and the result is U.S.-China policy has entirely deviated from a sound track,” Mr. Qin said. “The U.S. says it seeks only to outcompete China and does not seek conflict, but at the same time it wants to contain and suppress China.”
He compared the situation to a race in which one athlete focuses on trying to trip the other runner rather than simply running faster. “Such competition is a reckless gamble, with the stakes being … the future of humanity,” Mr. Qin added.
His comments came after a speech by President Xi Jinping on Monday in which he accused Western countries, led by the United States, of having “implemented the all-round containment, encirclement and suppression of China, which has brought unprecedented severe challenges to our country’s development.”
Mr. Qin’s news conference was nominally open to international media, but many foreign journalists in Beijing said they did not receive accreditation or invitations to attend. Questions had to be submitted in advance, and most journalists called upon Tuesday were from Chinese state media or “friendly” countries, including Russia and Egypt.
In Washington, John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson, brushed off the criticism and said the United States does not seek confrontation with Beijing.
“We seek a strategic competition with China. We do not seek conflict,” Mr. Kirby told reporters. “We aim to compete and we aim to win that competition with China but we absolutely want to keep it at that level.”
U.S. officials often speak of establishing guardrails in the bilateral relationship to prevent tensions from escalating into crises.
Asked about the Taiwan situation, Mr. Qin invoked Beijing’s long-standing policy that cross-strait affairs are an internal matter for China, while blaming the U.S. for any potential conflict over the self-ruled democracy. Taipei has steadily built up its ties with Washington in the face of growing Chinese aggression, including repeated military drills and aerial patrols around the island.
“The U.S. has an unshirkable responsibility for causing the Taiwan question,” Mr. Qin said. “The Chinese people have every right to ask why the U.S. talks at length about respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity on Ukraine while not respecting China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity on the Taiwan issue.”
He accused the U.S. of hypocrisy for pressuring China not to provide weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine “while it keeps selling arms to Taiwan.”
He said the conflict in Ukraine seems to have been driven by “an invisible hand … using the Ukraine crisis to serve certain geopolitical agendas,” while also promoting China’s recent peace proposal.
That 12-point plan landed with a thud last week, with many Western governments criticizing it for not calling on Russia to withdraw from Ukrainian territory. Even Kyiv, which said it was open to Chinese involvement in potential peace talks, called on Beijing to live up to its own stated respect for sovereignty and non-aggression by first condemning Russia’s invasion, which it has yet to do.
Further undermining China’s self-stated neutrality on the issue, the plan was released as Wang Yi, Mr. Qin’s predecessor and now China’s top diplomat, was visiting Russia, in what the Kremlin widely framed as a show of solidarity. Last week also saw a visit to Beijing by Belarusian President – and key Russian ally – Alexander Lukashenko.
Some analysts have speculated that Beijing may be funnelling aid to Russia through Belarus, where part of the initial invasion of Ukraine was staged. Writing this week, Joe Webster, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said a recent surge in trade between the two countries – including a tripling of exports from Belarus to China – could indicate “Beijing is using Minsk as a cut-out to provide economic and potentially even military assistance for Moscow.”
Mr. Qin’s comments on Ukraine came in response to a question from Tass, the Russian news agency. Praising ties between Beijing and Moscow as “a good example for international relations,” he said the friendship between Mr. Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin was the “compass and anchor of bilateral relations.”
Moscow has repeatedly claimed that Mr. Xi will visit Russia later this year, though China has yet to confirm any such visit. Beijing typically does not announce such trips until much closer to the actual date.
“With China and Russia working together, the world will have the driving force toward multipolarity and greater democracy in international relations, and global strategic balance and stability will be better ensured,” Mr. Qin said. “The more unstable the world becomes, the more imperative it is for China and Russia to steadily advance their relations.”
With reports from Alexandra Li and Reuters
James Griffiths