On Tuesday (March 7), China’s foreign minister warned that Beijing and the U.S. Are heading toward an ultimate “confrontation and conflict” unless Washington changes course.
The remarks made by China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang come as the strain between the United States and China worsens, only exacerbated by the surveillance balloon and ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.
The Foreign Minister’s comments echo a similar warning by China’s President Xi Jinping a day earlier.
Xi blamed the United States’ efforts to contain Beijing for the declining relationship and prompted the latter to retaliate.
Qin’s comments during a news conference, the first his conducted since taking the position in December, were made on the sidelines of rubber-stamped legislation when Xi is expected to carry out the largest cabinet reshuffle in over a decade.
Qin — who, until recently, was China’s ambassador to the U.S. — extensively rebuked the United States’ policies, questioning President Joe Biden’s statements that the U.S. is in competition with China and not conflict.
Qin suggested that conflict between the U.S. and China is unavoidable, saying, “the U.S.[‘s] so-called competition is all-round containment and suppression, a zero-sum game,” unless Washington stops attempting to suppress Beijing.
Qin claimed that the U.S. “supposedly wants to put ‘guardrails’ on Sino-U.S. relations and not to clash,” but emphasized that the U.S. “wants China not to respond in words or action when slandered or attacked,” which he claimed is “impossible.”
The Chinese Foreign Minister explained that these “guardrails” wouldn’t prevent “confrontation and conflict.”
