China to respond ‘firmly’ and ‘rationally’ to US’ ’peremptory’ acts
Beijing, Jul 29 (efe-epa).- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said his country would respond “firmly” and “rationally” to the United States’ “peremptory” actions and urged the world to oppose “any unilateral or hegemonic act” by Washington, state agency Xinhua reported Wednesday.
In a Tuesday night phone conversation with French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian, the Chinese foreign minister said the US has “abandoned the slightest sense of correctness” in relations between countries and “violated the most basic principles of international relations.”
“Tolerating a bully will not keep anyone safe but will only make him behave more daringly and act worse,” Wang said, calling on countries to resist unilateral or hegemonic acts and “safeguard the world’s peace and development.
The head of Chinese diplomacy warned of US State Secretary Mike Pompeo’s Friday speech in the Richard Nixon Library, in which, according to Wang, he instigated “a new ideological confrontation, leading the world to a new one cold war.”
“It is as if the ghost of McCarthyism could be seen rising from its ashes,” he said, referring to the period of persecutions and blacklistings of suspected communists promoted in the US in the 1950s by Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Wang said that if these “conspiracy theories” break through, not only will China-US relations “fall into the abyss of confrontation” but that the entire world would face a crisis of division and that the entire future of humanity would be in danger.
The Chinese foreign minister told Le Drian that the number of international treaties from which the current US administration has withdrawn “is greater than that of any of its predecessors.”
He said this was worse given the critical moment the world faced and Washington’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization, as the international community needs international solidarity to fight COVID-19.
Wang said the US “has shirked its responsibilities as a great country, despite protests from around the world,” adding that the country had become the main culprit for destroying the current international order, making it stand against historical trends and the international community.
He also said China would adopt “firm measures against these outrageous behaviors that undermine its rights and legitimate interests.”
“Beijing will never allow a few anti-China elements to disrupt decades of successful exchanges and cooperation between China and the United States, nor will it allow ideological biases to undermine the future development” of that relationship, he said.
The minister said the rest of the world’s countries “will make the right and wise decision,” and that they will make efforts to “avoid conflict and confrontation” as well as “brutally interrupting” the globalization process.
Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said China and the European Union would accelerate negotiations to conclude the bilateral investment agreement before the end of this year.
According to a statement from the Ministry of Commerce, Liu agreed Tuesday in a virtual meeting with the vice president of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, “to strengthen the adjustments of macroeconomic policies and implement effective fiscal and monetary policies to boost the recovery of the world economy.” EFE-EPA
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