China welcomes US competition but is not afraid of confrontation, Wang Yi says

Name: Biden warns of worldwide democracy backslide at virtual summit
Uploaded: 2021-12-20T11:47:13.000Z
Duration: 1 min 13 s
Description: Biden warns of worldwide democracy backslide at virtual summit

Foreign minister gives Beijing’s ‘consistent and clear’ position as he outlines its diplomatic priorities for the next year

Dialogue with Washington ‘is OK, but it should be equal’, he adds

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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi discussed Beijing’s diplomatic priorities for the year ahead. Photo: Xinhua

Amber Wang

Published: 7:47pm, 20 Dec 2021Updated: 8:01pm, 20 Dec 2021

Beijing welcomes mutually beneficial cooperation and healthy competition with the United States but is not afraid of confrontation, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.

“China’s attitude is consistent and clear,” Wang said on Monday. “Dialogue is OK, but it should be equal; cooperation is welcome, but it should be reciprocal; competition is not harmful, but it should be healthy. [China] is not afraid of confrontation and will [persist] to the end.”

The comments were made at a symposium in Beijing on China’s diplomacy, two weeks after the US hosted a democracy summit without China and announced a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in China over the country’s human rights record.

Both moves were heavily criticised by the Chinese government, which has responded by accusing the US over human rights issues, championing what it says are democratic aspects of its own political system and arranging its own “democracy forum” days before the one led by Washington.

01:13

Biden warns of worldwide democracy backslide at virtual summit

Noting that 2022 would be 50 years since former US president Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China that broke the ice between the two countries, Wang said on Monday that Beijing and Washington should again work to achieve a thaw.

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