“China Willing To Cooperate, But…”: Xi Jinping Tells Antony Blinken

China is willing to cooperate with the United States, but the cooperation should be a “two-way street”, Chinese President Xi Jinping told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during the meeting in Beijing on Friday.

Stating that the multiplicity and complexity of the challenges globally require the US and China to work together, President Xi affirmed that Beijing and Washington should be partners rather than rivals.

“China is willing to cooperate, but cooperation should be a two-way street. China is not afraid of competition, but competition should be about progressing together instead of playing a zero-sum game. China is committed to non-alliance, and the US should not create small blocs. While each side can have its friends and partners, it should not target, oppose or harm the other,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

China welcomes a confident, open, prosperous and thriving US, and hopes the US will also look at China’s development in a positive light, it added.

“Over the past 45 years, the relationship has gone through wind and rain, and the two sides can draw a few important lessons: China and the United States should be partners rather than rivals; help each other succeed rather than hurt each other; seek common ground and reserve differences rather than engage in vicious competition; and honour words with actions rather than say one thing but do another,” the statement further read.

President Xi further affirmed hope that both countries will continue working actively to truly stabilize, improve and move forward the bilateral relations.

“As a Chinese saying goes, “No progress means regress.” It also applies to China-US relations. It is hoped that the two teams will continue working actively to follow through on the San Francisco vision, so as to truly stabilize, improve and move forward the bilateral relations,” Xi was quoted as saying.

Blinken noted that since President Biden and President Xi met in San Francisco, the US and China have made good progress in their cooperation in such areas as bilateral interactions, counter-narcotics, artificial intelligence and people-to-people exchanges. The multiplicity and complexity of the challenges the world faces require the “US and China working together,” the statement added.

The visit aims to shore up the fractious relationship between the two countries despite disputes over the economy, national security, and geopolitical frictions, according to the New York Times.

The US State Department in its statement, said that the US and China had “in-depth, substantive, and constructive discussions” on key priorities in the bilateral relationship and on a range of regional and global issues.

Secretary Blinken emphasized that the US will continue to use diplomacy to make progress in areas of difference and areas of cooperation that matter to the American people and the world as part of responsibly managing competition with the PRC (China).

He also pressed for continued progress in implementing the leaders’ Woodside Summit commitments on key issues, including advancing counternarcotics cooperation to disrupt the global flow of synthetic drugs – including fentanyl and their precursor chemicals – into the United States, enhancing military-to-military communication to avoid miscalculation and conflict, and launching talks on managing the risk and safety challenges posed by advanced forms of artificial intelligence, the State Department added.

Earlier on April 24, Blinken, who is on his second visit to China this year said that he was in China “to make progress on issues that matter most to the American people, including curbing fentanyl trafficking.”

Blinken’s visit follows a visit to China by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen earlier this month.