Link to article: http://www.news.cn/english/2021-09/23/c_1310205424.htm
China wants to improve mutual respect and de-escalate tensions which was stated by Chinese Ambassador Qin Gang. He says that they will continue to work with the U.S. if there is cooperation. They do not want the cooperation to be one sided by working where the U.S is only interested while neglecting China’s interests. He said that he worries that the U.S. views their relationship as competition in the way that the U.S. takes the form of confrontation on China’s core interests. “If this does not change, it will undermine China’s efforts to promote our mutual trust and cooperation,” said Qin Gang. He also says that China is open and inclusive and will accept criticism/suggestions if they are constructive and have good intentions. However, they will not accept “ baseless slander and disinformation”.
I thought it was very interesting to read about China’s interest in improving the relationship with the U.S. through mutual respect. The timing of these statements was interesting as well, especially with the recent events of U.S. and China rivalry growing. This article is important because it shows the viewpoint from China which allows the readers to understand where they are coming from. It was interesting to see how China sees us and what they would like our interactions to be like in order to improve our relationship. Of course China and the U.S. do not have the smoothest relationship because of problems including the differences of ideas, military, and suspicion of one another’s motives. Although, we have strong economic ties as China is our third largest goods trading partner. Because of this, maintaining and fixing the relationship with China would help the economic connection. Although due to the countries vastly different opinions, strengthening relations through mutual respect can be extremely difficult.
In class we have talked about global powers, and have identified that the U.S. is at the top and China is a prominent power that seems to be rising. Factors including military power, global influence, population, and government are what make a country a dominant one. We also talked about how the history of a country determines how a country acts moving forward. I think understanding how the history of the United States and China impacts the decisions they make today, is crucial to understanding why the country does what they do. This would allow ties to improve because the Countries can understand each other a little bit better.