In the traditional press conference at the end of the parliamentary meetings, the Chinese premier makes few comments on diplomacy
He singles out the destructive economic effects for both sides on Washington’s efforts to decouple from China
Chinese Premier Li Qiang arrives for the traditional press conference after the end of the “two sessions” parliamentary meetings. Photo: AP
While China’s new premier, Li Qiang, devoted limited time to foreign affairs in his first press conference after taking office, he did single out the destructive economic effects of a decoupling from the United States.
In the traditional media event on Monday at the close of the “two sessions” parliamentary meetings in Beijing, Li took only one question on foreign affairs – from a reporter from the Dubai-based China Arab TV.
It was a striking contrast to his predecessor Li Keqiang, who usually took multiple foreign policy questions from a range of international media during his two terms of office.
Li Qiang, who begins his term as China’s second most powerful leader at the start of President Xi Jinping’s third term, pointed out that “encirclement” and “suppression” would not benefit the US or China.
Responding to the question on the development of US-China relations amid geopolitical tensions, Li said some people in the US had been “hyping the ‘decoupling’ of the two countries”.
“But I don’t know how many people can really benefit from this hype,” he said.
Li said US-China economic relations remained strong, with a record trade volume of US$760 billion last year.
Asked about foreign capital outflows amid tensions with the US, he said US businesspeople had given him positive accounts of their China-related prospects.
“China and the US have each other in their economies, and both have benefited from each other’s development,” he said. “China and the US can and should cooperate. There is great potential for China-US cooperation. Containing and suppressing will do no one any good.”
Li said he would not reiterate last week’s remarks by Foreign Minister Qin Gang, but he called on the consensus reached by Xi and US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of last year’s Group of 20 summit to be turned into “actual implementation”.
Qin struck a harsh tone during last week’s two sessions, describing the US as a source of global problems. Xi was also unusually direct in his speech, pointing at Washington for directly carrying out “all-round” containment against China.
Lu Xiang, a US-China relations expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the country’s economic development was the priority for Li’s press conference, considering the challenges China faced on this front.
“From his point of view as the premier, diplomacy should be a task that serves the economy,” he said, saying a relatively stable external environment was needed for economic growth.
‘He has room to do something great’: what to expect from China’s next premier
Lu said the premier’s message expressed “some hopes” for the normalisation of US-China relations, but also warned against the damaging effects of decoupling to both sides.
“What the United States is doing now is even worse than a zero-sum rivalry, it’s a negative-sum one … The harm it caused to American companies is also very serious,” he said.
“Any measures [taken by the US] aiming to just hurt China but not itself would be very hard.”
Calls to decouple the US economy from China have grown in Washington and resulted in measures to limit China’s access to chips that it needs for its hi-tech development.
Xi Jinping begins third term urging a balance of growth and security
The ban on semiconductor exports to China has caused significant loss of revenues to some US firms. The US is also considering restricting American investments in Chinese tech companies.
Relations between the US and China remain strained, despite initial signs of thawing following Xi and Biden’s G20 meeting, which included an agreement to restore high-level communication and plans for a visit to Beijing by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The planned trip was indefinitely postponed after a Chinese balloon entered US airspace in February, prompting spying claims that China has denied.
Zhu Feng, a US-China relations specialist at Nanjing University, said Li’s response during the press conference reflected the Chinese government’s concerns about the relationship between the two countries.
Zhu said the current tensions made it unlikely that the US and China would resume constructive dialogue in the coming year.
“If the Americans try their best to suppress China, then China can only [stand up to it]. It will cause huge disasters for the economies and people of the two countries and the world in the future. Of course China is not willing to decouple, it’s still a growing economy,” he said.
