BEIJING (Washington Insider Magazine) – As tensions over Taiwan, trade, and other problems continue to simmer, China’s top ambassador called on the United States to take efforts to repair relations on Monday.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s comments were made digitally at a forum commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Shanghai Communique, which was signed amid President Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 trip to China.
According to ABC NEWS, that visit led to Beijing and Washington establishing diplomatic ties 7 years later, after which the United States broke official ties with Taiwan, which Beijing asserts as its own country’s territory to be taken under its jurisdiction by force if needed.
Wang urged the United States to return to a fair and practical China policy and cooperate with China to repair bilateral ties. He reaffirmed China’s objections that the US was not following through on its obligations, but he did not specify any concrete actions that China would take.
Beijing has been notably upset by US State secretary Antony Blinken’s description of relations as “competitive when it should be, collaborative when it can be, adversarial when it must be,” implying that the two countries should cooperate across the board, despite their significant disagreements.
The shared suspicion of the Soviet Union fueled rapprochement among China and The United States in 1972. In the decades afterward, China has grown closer to Russia, while tensions between Russia and the United States have risen due to the conflict in Ukraine.
Despite its commitment to maintaining national sovereignty above everything, Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin in China this month and declined to denounce or endorse Russia’s conduct.
China, the United Arab Emirates, and India abstained from voting in Friday’s 11-1 vote on a United Nations Security Council motion urging that Russia end its aggression on Ukraine immediately. The Foreign Ministry stated on Monday that imposing sanctions against Russia would impede the political resolution process.
The Shanghai Communique spent a lot of time talking about Taiwan, which broke away from the mainland in 1949 due to civil war and has never been administered by the communist People’s Republic of China. Following the breakup of relations with Taiwan in 1979, the US Congress established laws ensuring that Taiwan would be able to defend itself and that challenges to the island would be treated as serious concerns.
Taiwan is the principal source of friction between China and the United States, especially since consecutive US administrations have allowed weapons shipments to the island and boosted high-level meetings with Taipei’s democratically appointed government.
The transit of the missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson across the Taiwan Strait was denounced by China’s Defense Ministry on Saturday as provocative. The Strait is in international seas, and the vessel’s passage underlines the US adherence to an open and free Indo-Pacific, according to the US Navy. The US military can fly, sail, and operate everywhere that international law permits.
