BEIJING (Xinhua/Internews): On April 22, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China announced that at the invitation of Member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit China from April 24 to 26. On April 22, a senior official from the Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs of the Foreign Ministry briefed the media on the visit.
The official noted that Secretary Blinken’s visit is part of the efforts by China and the United States to implement the common understandings reached by the two presidents at their meeting in San Francisco, maintain dialogue, manage differences, advance cooperation and strengthen coordination on international affairs.
The two sides have been in communication regarding the visit. In the phone call between the two presidents on April 2, President Joe Biden told President Xi Jinping that the United States will send Secretary Blinken to visit China. The Chinese side welcomed the visit.
The official said last November, President Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden held a historic meeting in San Francisco. They reached a series of important common understandings and deliverables, and established a future-oriented San Francisco vision. At the start of the year, President Xi exchanged congratulatory letters with President Biden on the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
On March 27, President Xi met with representatives of the U.S. business, strategic and academic communities. On April 2, President Xi spoke with President Biden on the phone at the request of the latter. Under the strategic guidance of the two presidents, China-U.S. relations started to stabilize. On the other hand, there are still significant negative factors in the bilateral relationship.
The United States continues pushing forward the strategy of containing China, keeps adopting erroneous words and actions that interfere in China’s internal affairs, smear China’s image and undermine China’s interests. China resolutely opposes such moves and has taken strong countermeasures.
The official said the Chinese side always views and handles its relations with the United States in accordance with the three fundamental principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation. Regarding China-U.S. relations in 2024, the Chinese side will follow three overarching principles: peace must be valued, stability must be prioritized, and credibility must be upheld.
First, establishing the right perception. Perception is always the first button that must be put right. Whether China and the United States are rivals or partners is a fundamental issue, on which there must not be any catastrophic mistake.
China always believes that major-country competition is not the prevailing trend of the current times, nor the solution to the problems facing China, the United States and the world. The two big countries of China and the United States should not cut off their ties or turn their back on each other, still less slide into conflict or confrontation.
China-U.S. relations should be stabilized and strengthened, and continue moving forward in a stable, sound and sustainable way. At the same time, China has interests that must be safeguarded, principles that must be upheld, and red lines that must not be crossed. President Biden noted on many occasions that the United States does not seek a new Cold War, its objective is not to change China’s system or curtail China’s development, its alliances are not targeted against China, the United States does not support “Taiwan independence,” and the United States does not seek conflict with China or “decoupling” from China. We urge the U.S. side to honor President Biden’s above commitments with concrete actions, and work with the Chinese side to turn the San Francisco vision into reality, rather than continue to contain and suppress China in the name of competition.
The diplomatic teams of the two sides will continue their discussions on the guiding principles of China-U.S. relations based on the seven-point common understandings already reached, i.e. both countries treating each other with respect and finding a way to live alongside each other peacefully, maintaining open lines of communication, preventing conflict, upholding the U.N. Charter, cooperating in areas of shared interests, and responsibly managing competitive aspects of the relationship.
