Don’t treat China as “Strategic Rival”, says China’s Ambassador to US

TIL Desk/World/Beijing/ Treating China as a “strategic rival” of the United States is a misjudgement that could lead to mistakes, China’s ambassador to the United States said in a speech to an online forum.

Since the Trump administration defined China as a strategic rival in 2018, Washington and Beijing have frequently clashed over issues ranging from trade to Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus, and the new administration of President Joe Biden is expected to maintain pressure on China.

In the first major speech by a Chinese official on relations between the world’s two biggest economies since Biden took office, Ambassador Cui Tiankai reasserted China’s long-standing position of seeking peaceful coexistence with the United States, while warning it not to cross China’s red lines.

“Treating China as a strategic rival and imaginary enemy would be a huge strategic misjudgement,” Cui told the forum that took place late on Wednesday, U.S. time, Thursday in Beijing. “To develop any policy on the basis of that would only lead to grave strategic mistakes.”