BEIJING: A top Chinese diplomat said Friday that US policy toward China is “too negative” and that cooperation could be critically important as the Biden administration focuses on combatting COVID-19 and promoting economic recovery.
The US appears to be highlighting confrontation and playing down cooperation, Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said in a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press.
“Such an approach, I must say, is too negative,” he said, adding that it lacks “a forward-looking spirit.”
Le also signaled that China is unlikely to make any new pledges at a climate change meeting called by President Joe Biden for next week.
He spoke as Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, was discussing the issue on the second day of closed-door meetings with Chinese counterparts in Shanghai.
Chinese President Xi Jinping announced last year that China would be carbon-neutral by 2060 and aim to reach a peak in its emissions by 2030.
“For a big country with 1.4 billion people, these goals are not easily delivered,” Le said.
“Some countries are asking China to do more on climate change. I am afraid this is not very realistic.”
Le said he had no details on the Kerry meetings in Shanghai.
Biden has invited 40 world leaders, including Xi, to an April 22-23 virtual climate summit.
The US and other countries are expected to announce more ambitious national targets for cutting carbon emissions and pledge financial help for climate efforts by less wealthy nations.
Le said that China would convey a positive message at the meeting, but added that China is responding to climate change on its own initiative, not because others asked it to.
On whether Xi would join the summit, Le said “the Chinese side is actively studying the matter.”
The US and China have become increasingly at odds over a range of issues, including accusations of human rights abuses in Tibet and the Xinjiang region, a crackdown on protest and political freedom in Hong Kong, China’s assertion of its territorial claims toward Taiwan and in the South China Sea and accusations Beijing was slow to inform the world about the COVID-19 outbreak that became a devastating global pandemic.
China hoped for an improvement in relations under Biden, who succeeded President Donald Trump in January, but Biden’s administration has shown no sign of backing down on hardline policies toward China.
The two sides traded sharp and unusually public barbs at the start of talks in Alaska last month.
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