China’s top spy agency casts doubt over Xi Jinping attending Apec talks

Ministry of State Security calls on Washington to ‘show real sincerity’ in social media post
It also accuses US of being ‘two-faced’ in its China policy, which it says is ‘doomed to fail’

US-China relations

Yuanyue Dangin Beijing

Published: 6:01pm, 4 Sep 2023

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China’s top spy agency has cast doubt over President Xi Jinping’s attendance at the coming Apec summit in San Francisco in a social media post calling on the US to “show real sincerity”.

In the WeChat post on Monday, the Ministry of State Security said that despite positive signals from senior US officials during recent China visits, Washington’s new approach was to “compete” with Beijing.

The ministry – which oversees the secret police and intelligence – accused the US of being “two-faced” in its China policy, which it said was “doomed to fail” as Beijing would not follow Washington’s agenda.

“To truly realise the move from Bali to San Francisco, the US needs to show real sincerity,” it said.

That was a clear reference to a potential meeting between Xi and US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, to be held in the Californian city in November. The two leaders last met at the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia last November.

President Xi Jinping will be absent from this weekend’s G20 summit in New Delhi. Photo: AP

It comes as China’s foreign ministry on Monday confirmed that Xi will miss this weekend’s G20 gathering in New Delhi, with Premier Li Qiang to take his place.

Biden had on Sunday responded to reports that Xi may not attend, saying he was “disappointed … but I am going to get to see him”, without elaborating.

In the social media post, the state security ministry said Washington had signalled that it did not intend to undermine China’s development yet the US had approved arms sales and military assistance to Taiwan, “stirred up trouble” over Xinjiang and Tibet, and “downplayed China’s economy”.

It said US strategy on China had in the past involved “engagement” while “quietly pushing for its infiltration and containment”.

Now, according to the ministry, the US strategy on China was to “compete” and “manage the competition”.

It said that included “decoupling and disconnecting at the economic level, ganging up at the political level, deterrence and containment at the security level, discrediting and disparaging at the public opinion level, and constraining and locking down at the rules level”.

“We fear that the US has even more bleak tactics it could use,” the post said.

The ministry, which launched the social media account in July, has been increasingly vocal on US-China relations. Last month it disclosed two espionage cases, directly accusing the CIA of trying to recruit Chinese informers. It has also taken aim at the US’ national security strategy towards China.

Zhu Feng, dean of the School of International Studies at Nanjing University, said the ministry’s latest social media post “reflects the dissatisfaction of Chinese government departments with the Biden administration’s China policy”.

He said despite high-level exchanges resuming, “there has been no substantial relaxation of the US policy of suppressing China”.

Zhu added that it might have been a statement of the ministry’s “political stance” and that Xi could still attend the Apec talks.

Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor at Renmin University of China in Beijing, noted that it was not for the spy agency to say if Xi would attend the San Francisco summit.