President Xi Jinping vows peace, as PLA top brass talks tough and with Vietnam ablaze
'In Chinese blood, there is no DNA for aggression,' says president, as PLA top brass vows China will not 'lose an inch' of its territory
The timing of a speech given by President Xi Jinping calling for peace last week has intrigued pundits.
"In Chinese blood, there is no DNA for aggression or hegemony," Xi told guests at an event on Thursday to mark the 60th anniversary of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries.
The speech was made after violent attacks targeting Chinese broke out in Vietnam in the wake of China's introduction of an oil rig in a disputed area of the South China Sea.
Also on Thursday, a press conference by PLA Chief of General Staff Fang Fenghui and his United States counterpart Martin Dempsey turned acrimonious when Fang said the US' "Asia pivot" had inflamed tensions in the South China Sea, and suggested "some neighbouring countries" were using the policy as a pretext for provocations.
Fang vowed China would not "lose an inch" of its territory.
Xi said China had long understood that a strong country should not seek out war.
"Chinese people do not accept the logic that a strong country must also be hegemonic," Xi told the guests, which included former Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama, Princess of Tonga Pilolevu Tuita and Christopher Cox, grandson of late US president Richard Nixon . "History has told us that wars are like devils and nightmares."