Beijing: Against the backdrop of intense chill in bilateral relations, Visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinkenon Monday met Chinese President Xi Jinping who said his country has no intention to challenge American interests but wants reciprocity.
Xi told Blinken that the US “must not hurt” China’s legitimate rights and interests, according to State-run Xinhua News Agency.
Xi said the two sides need to remain committed to the common understandings he and President Biden reached in Bali and translate the positive statements into actions so as to stabilise and improve China-U.S. relations.
“Neither side should try to shape the other side by its own will, still less deprive the other side of its legitimate right to development,” he said.
Blinken is on a visit aimed at lowering tensions between the two major powers over Taiwan and some other matters.
Blinken is the first US Secretary of State to visit China in five years.
Xi said Beijing always hopes to see a sound and steady China-U.S. relationship and believes that the two major countries can overcome various difficulties and find the right way to get along based on mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation.
He called on the U.S. side to adopt a rational and pragmatic attitude and work with China in the same direction.
Xi pointed out that the world needs a generally stable China-U.S. relationship, and whether the two countries can find the right way to get along bears on the future of humanity.
The Chinese, like the Americans, are dignified, confident and self-reliant people, and they both have the right to pursue a better life, he said.
Noting that the common interests of the two countries should be valued and their respective success is an opportunity instead of a threat to each other, Xi said the two countries should act with a sense of responsibility for history, for the people and for the world, and handle China-U.S. relations properly.
In this way, they may contribute to global peace and development, and help make the world, which is changing and turbulent, more stable, certain and constructive, added Xi.
Xi stressed that a competition on who is a major country does not represent the trend of the times, still less can it solve America’s own problems or the challenges facing the world.
UNI/XINHUA
