Top Chinese diplomat puts onus on Biden to repair damage caused by Trump
New York — China’s top diplomat has warned the US not to cross the country’s “red line” in a pointed speech that pushed back against early moves by President Joe Biden to press Beijing on human rights.
Yang urged the US to stop “harassing Chinese students, restricting Chinese media outlets, shutting down Confucius Institutes and suppressing Chinese companies” and said Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang affairs were a “red line that must not be crossed”. “So far, all signs on both sides are that neither wants to appear too eager to make the first move in moderating the bilateral tensions,” Avery Goldstein, a University of Pennsylvania professor of global politics and international relations, said before Yang’s speech. “Despite the transition to a new administration in the US, continuity rather than change in this troubled relationship prevails.
“There are adversarial aspects to the relationship, there’s certainly competitive ones, and there’s still some co-operative ones, too,” Blinken said on MSNBC. “But whether we’re dealing with any of those aspects of the relationship, we have to be able to approach China from a position of strength, not weakness.”