Pence must abandon Cold War mind-set to show he really means what he says

In his speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center on Thursday, US Vice-President Mike Pence repeated most of the anti-China clich��s he used last year. But his renewed "declaration of cold war" against China contained some new accusations, ranging from the central governments' efforts to combat terrorism in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, and Hong Kong's efforts to quell violent protests in the special administrative region, to false charges of surveillance against China.

Referring, in US-style, to "the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world", Pence claimed the US "built China over the last 25 years", and US workers grew "more disheartened" with the closure of every factory in the US to the benefit of China.

Pence's description of the US as China's "benefactor" has only exposed his ignorance of the economic law of the international division of labor. China has made great developments through reform and opening-up, not by seeking favors from the US.