Xi Jinping warns against ‘new Cold War’
Chinese President Xi Jinping has warned against stoking a “new Cold War”, after Beijing and Washington last week launched tit-for-tat sanctions on each other’s top officials.
Speaking at this year’s Digital Davos, Xi attacked both former US President Donald Trump and his White House successor, Joe Biden, warning that confrontation “will always end up harming every nation’s interests and sacrificing people’s welfare”.
“We should respect and accommodate differences, avoid meddling in other countries’ internal affairs and resolve disagreements through consultation and dialogue,” the Chinese premier told world leaders at the World Economic Forum.
“To build small cliques or start a new Cold War, to reject, threaten or intimidate others… will only push the world into division,” Xi added.
“Each country is unique with its own history, culture and social system, and none is superior to the other,” Xi said, warning against imposing a “hierarchy on human civilization” or forcing one’s own systems onto others.
It comes after the Trump administration last week slapped sanctions on Chinese officials in response to Beijing’s crackdown on pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong.
In one of his last acts as President, Trump targeted two Chinese Communist party officials involved in setting Hong Kong policy, in addition to Hong Kong security officials in the police force.
In a major escalation of tensions between the two countries, secretary of state Mike Pompeo also accused China of committing genocide and crimes against humanity in its repression of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.
China immediately retaliated, handing out sanctions to 28 top US officials including Pompeo.
Anthony Blinken, the new US secretary of state under the Biden administration, said Trump had been “right in taking a tougher approach to China” , adding that there remained “rising adversarial aspects to the relationship, certainly competitive ones, and still some cooperative ones when it is in our mutual interest”.
Speaking at Davos this afternoon, Xi hinted at China’s desire to reforge high-level dialogue with the incoming Biden administration, calling for countries to “enhance political trust through strategic communication.”