US urged to get ties with China back on track

The United States talks about market spirit and fair competition, but in practice it moves in the opposite direction, a senior Chinese official said on Wednesday.

Speaking during a video dialogue on China-US relations, Vice-Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said that the US has chosen to turn a blind eye to China, which has accounted for over 30 percent of global economic growth for years and has been responsible for more than 70 percent of global poverty reduction.

He said that the US has used "national security" as an excuse to attack Chinese high-tech company Huawei, and it is getting increasingly hysterical in areas such as people-to-people exchanges by putting scholars under surveillance and expelling journalists.

"The China-US relationship is so vital for the future of China, the US and the world. It must not be hijacked by McCarthyite fanatics, or be dragged into a cul-de-sac," Le said.

The diplomat said that China-US relations should not be driven by ideologies, and any attempt to sever the bond between the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people will never succeed.

It is the choice of history and the people that the CPC is China's governing party, Le said, adding that differences in social systems did not prevent the two countries from establishing and advancing bilateral ties 48 years ago, and should certainly not be an obstacle to China-US cooperation today.

He pointed out that in a world where national interests are interconnected, any attempt to exclude China, create "parallel systems", or break the world into two markets and industrial chains is to turn back the wheel of history.

"To build a bloc against China and force other countries to take sides will not win hearts and minds," Le said, adding that many countries resent being put in such a position.

According to Le, it is impossible to exclude a market of 1.4 billion people, even for the US. In April, bilateral trade between the two countries rose to $41.2 billion, making China the largest trading partner of the US. The figure continued to grow in May to $46.5 billion.

"Why would anyone want to cut off the cooperation that has been benefiting both sides? And why would they want to promote so-called decoupling?" he said, reiterating that China's door to cooperation will remain open to all countries, including the US.

Amid the global pandemic, the Chinese official said, the US should realize that the real enemy is not China. Instead, it is the invisible virus and other nontraditional security threats such as terrorism and financial risks.

It doesn't solve any problem for the US to scapegoat China, which is also a victim of the pandemic, he said, urging the US to work with China and the rest of the world to fight COVID-19 and come through it together.