In Stinging Rebuke, China Tells U.S. Diplomat That Its Rise Can’t Be Stopped

A senior Chinese diplomat bluntly warned the visitor on Monday US Secretary of State Wendy R. Sherman said the Biden administration’s strategy of pursuing both the confrontation and cooperation with Beijing is certain to fail.

China’s Deputy Foreign Minister Xie Feng told Ms. Sherman that the United States’ “competitive, collaborative and hostile rhetoric” is a “thinly veiled attempt to contain and suppress China,” according to a summary of Mr. Xie’s comments sent to reporters by the Chinese State Department .

Ms. Sherman’s meetings provided the latest benchmark for the Biden government’s strategy to increase pressure on the Chinese government on multiple fronts, including human rights and internet hacking, while trying to address global issues such as climate change and international health threats to work together. Mr. Xie’s remarks underscored the anger that has been building in China towards the United States and undermines the chances that the approach will work.

“It appears that a nationwide and societal campaign is being waged to bring China down,” Xie told Ms. Sherman, according to the summaries of his comments, which were also posted on the ministry’s overseas website. “Do bad things and get good results. How is that ever possible? “

The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s militant comments made before and during Ms. Sherman’s talks in the north Chinese city of Tianjin indicated that her visit was unlikely to defuse the disputes between Beijing and Washington. The State Department said last week that it would discuss Washington’s “serious concerns” about Chinese actions as well as “areas where our interests coincide”.

But the Chinese “feel that the real emphasis is on the adversarial aspect; the collaborative aspect is just a convenience, ”Mr. Xie told Ms. Sherman, according to the summary.

The sharpness reflected the opening of high-level talks between high-ranking Chinese and Biden government officials in March when Beijing’s chief foreign policy leader Yang Jiechi gave a 16-minute talk, accusing them of arrogance and hypocrisy.

Ms. Sherman became known during the Obama administration as the lead negotiator for a nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 after years of controversial talks. As No. 2 in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she focuses on managing strained relations with China.

While President Biden largely avoided it the heated ideological sparring with the Chinese Communist Party that the Trump administration led in its final year, relations remain strained.

Updated

July 23, 2021 at 5:42 p.m. ET

Washington has attracted allies to press Beijing over mass arrests and forced labor in Xinjiang and the withdrawal of freedom in Hong Kong.

The Chinese government has also resented calls by the United States, the World Health Organization and others for a re-investigation into whether the coronavirus may have hatched from a laboratory in China and set the pandemic off.

Last week, Chinese officials said they were “extremely shocked” at a WHO proposal to reconsider laboratory leak theory. A report from a first WHO investigation in March said it was “extremely unlikely” that the coronavirus jumped into the wider population through a laboratory leak.

The Biden government and a coalition of other governments, including NATO member states, also claimed last week that Chinese security services and their contract hackers were behind widespread breaches of Microsoft email systems.

Under Xi Jinping, the Chinese government has expressed impatience for criticism and demands from Washington, particularly regarding Beijing’s internal problems such as Hong Kong, Xinjiang and human rights.

“We will never accept excruciatingly arrogant lectures from these ‘master teachers’!” Said Mr. Xi in a speech on July 1st on the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party. He also warned that enemies “crack their heads and shed blood” against a wall of Chinese determination.

Beijing has repeatedly punished the sanctions against Hong Kong and Xinjiang with its own bans against Western politicians, human rights groups and academics.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who was also due to meet Ms. Sherman in Tianjin, said over the weekend that the United States should be taught some humility.

“If the United States has still not learned how to get along with other countries in the same way, then we have a responsibility to work with the international community to give it a good catch-up lesson,” Wang said in talks with his Pakistani counterpart on Saturday Shah Mehmood Qureshi, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Keith Bradsher contributed to the coverage.