BEIJING: President Xi Jinping has urged the United States to look at China’s development positively and refrain from creating small blocs to instigate confrontation.
Xi made the remarks during a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Friday. The meeting, on the final day of Blinken’s second visit to China in the past year, came as communications between the two countries have expanded in recent months.
Blinken’s visit, which started on Wednesday, also took place as a result of the consensus between Xi and US President Joe Biden during a telephone conversation on April 2. The visit also took him to Shanghai.
At his meeting with Blinken, Xi said that the planet is big enough to accommodate the common development and respective prosperity of China and the US.
“China is happy to see a confident, open, prosperous and thriving United States. We hope the US can also look at China’s development in a positive light,” he said.
“This is a fundamental issue that must be addressed, just like the first button of a shirt that must be put right, in order for the China-US relationship to truly stabilize, improve and move forward.”
During his meeting with Biden in San Francisco in November, Xi proposed what he described as “five pillars” for China-US relations: establishing correct perceptions, effectively managing differences, promoting mutually beneficial cooperation, shouldering major-country responsibilities, and advancing people-to-people exchanges.
China is willing to cooperate with the US, but such cooperation should be two-way, Xi told Blinken.
“We are not afraid of competition, but competition should lead to mutual progress rather than a zerosum game. China is committed to non-alliance, and the United States should also avoid creating small blocs. Both sides can have their own friends and partners without targeting, opposing or harming each other.”
The president emphasized that it is the shared aspiration of the two peoples and the international community to see China and the US strengthen dialogue, manage differences and advance cooperation.
“China and the United States should be partners rather than rivals; help each other succeed rather than hurt each other; seek common ground and reserve differences, rather than engage in vicious competition; and honor words with actions, rather than say one thing but do the opposite,” he added. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
