Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang defended his nation’s development path at a forum attended by foreign executives Friday, while warning that his nation will not compromise on Taiwan.
“China has found a path by itself to modernization and created a new form of human advancement,” Qin said at the opening of Shanghai’s Lanting Forum, which was partly organised by the government.
“Modernisation should not make the rich richer and the poor poorer, nor should it serve the interests of only a few countries or individuals,” he said.
Qin also hit back at accusations China is changing the status quo regarding Taiwan. Beijing held three days of military drills around Taiwan this month to show its anger over Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen meeting House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California.
“Such claims go against basic common sense on international relations and historical justice,” he said. “The logic is absurd and the consequences are dangerous.”
Qin’s comments underscore Beijing’s determination to stand up to what it sees as US efforts to suppress its growth and meddle in Taiwan, the democracy sitting just off China’s coast that it has pledged to bring under its control.
The US appears close to stepping up its curbs on China’s tech ambitions, partly due to national security concerns. President Joe Biden aims to sign an executive order in the coming weeks that will limit investment in key parts of its economy by American businesses, people familiar with the internal deliberations have said.
The US has been briefing its Group of Seven partners on the investment curbs for high-tech industries, and hopes to get an endorsement at next month’s meeting of leaders in Japan, even though the other countries aren’t expected to announce similar restrictions at the same time, the people said.
The move would follow the US imposing tariffs on Chinese imports under ex-President Donald Trump, and more recently seeking to restrict exports of key American technologies. It’s also rallied nations including the Netherlands and Japan to curb exports of advanced chips.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a speech Thursday in Washington that the administration was prepared to accept economic costs as it sought to protect US national security interests from threats posed by the world’s No. 2 economy, even as she appealed to Beijing to cooperate on shared global concerns.
In March, Xi hit back at the US campaign, calling it “comprehensive containment and suppression by Western countries led by the US.”
In his remarks to the forum that’s being attended by executives including HSBC Holdings Plc Chairman Mark Tucker and Mercedes-Benz Group AG Chief Executive Officer Ola Kallenius, Qin repeated that China wants “peaceful solutions” to international disputes and that it isn’t supplying weapons to the fighting in Ukraine.
Earlier this year, China unveiled a 12-point peace blueprint for the war in Ukraine that has been dismissed as a nonstarter by the US and others, partly because it would freeze Russian troops in place on Ukrainian territory.
The US has warned China against providing lethal aid to Moscow.
