US must accept its hegemony is waning, says Chinese foreign vice-minister Le Yucheng
- Senior official insists that US is still a strong nation and will be hard to overtake, but should not adopt a ‘cold war mentality’
- Le says many countries are ready to support China internationally and criticises Washington for forming ‘small clubs’ such as the G7 and Quad
China’s foreign vice-minister Le Yucheng has called on Washington to accept that “American hegemony” is in decline, but insisted it will be difficult to overtake the United States even within a “relatively long period of time”.
The US is still the leading power in terms of strength but its adoption of a cold war mentality and creation of “small clubs” is a sign of ideological decline, Le told media outlet Guancha on Friday.
“The US decline is not a decline in strength but a decline of hegemony,” Le said. “No matter a country’s strength, hegemonic power is bound to wither, hegemony is not popular.”
But he said the US is “still a strong and large nation in the number one spot”, adding: “It will be hard to overtake it over a relatively long period of time.”
Le said that US-led groupings like the defence-focused Quad, the intelligence-sharing Five Eyes, and the Group of Seven were all examples of Washington trying to define the “international community” when there are many more nations willing to support China’s position.
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Afterwards, China said that it had won the backing of 90 nations, which had “said ‘no’ to anti-China ‘small clubs’,” according to Le. He said: “This is the international community’s voice of justice, this is real multilateralism.”
The remarks come at a time when Beijing is urging the US not to form a relationship rooted in rivalry but to continue engaging with China.
In an event marking the 50th anniversary of Henry Kissinger’s secret visit to China which set in motion the normalisation of relations, Vice-President Wang Qishan said the biggest challenge facing the US came from within rather than from China.
Meanwhile the former US secretary of state has called for serious dialogue between China and the United States to avoid “catastrophe”.
Le also accused Biden and his administration of revealing their hegemonic view of the world order and lingering cold war mentality when they spoke of approaching China “from a position of strength”.
The phrase also irked China’s foreign policy chief Yang Jiechi during his March meeting with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in Alaska.
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“The biggest challenge faced by a superpower like the United States will always come from within, and destroying China is by no means a prescription for solving American problems,” Le said.
“We hope that the United States will return to reason and the right path of dialogue and cooperation, no need to turn resisting China into a policy, nor containing China into ‘political correctness’.”
Le also referred to the Build Back Better World plan advocated by the United States at the recent G7 meeting to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative, saying China welcomes other nations’ efforts to boost infrastructure development.
“We hope the US and Western countries can truly implement their infrastructure plans, build more roads and bridges for developing countries, and create more jobs and welfare for them, instead of interfering in other countries’ internal affairs and forcibly exporting Western values,” he said.
Le has been a moderate voice among Beijing’s diplomatic corps, being the first to send an olive branch to the US after last year’s election and penning long commentaries in state-run media calling for US-China dialogue at all levels of government and among think tanks and the media.
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However, during the interview on Friday Le made several criticisms of the US that were similar in tone and substance to the more aggressive rhetoric of the Wolf Warriors.
Le said the genocide of Native Americans was one reason why Washington’s criticisms of China’s human rights record were not credible.
Le also described the hypothesis that the coronavirus could have leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan as a “conspiracy theory manufactured by spies”, urging the US to clear up suspicions surrounding its own biolaboratories.
