After US President Joe Biden's statement that his country has no intention to start a 'Cold War' with China, China's Xi Jinping said that disputes among countries need to be handled through dialogue and cooperation. He was addressing the United Nations General Assembly. The US and China have been locked in a standoff fuelled by major disagreements on issues like trade, technology, Beijing's aggressive moves in the South China Sea and human rights. Earlier this year, high-level talks between the Biden administration and Beijing were fraught with tension, with officials on both sides exchanging sharp rebukes in public.
Biden used his first address before the UNGA on Tuesday to declare that the world stands and at an inflection point in history and must move quickly and cooperatively to address the festering issues of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and human rights abuse. Amid growing China tensions Biden also declared the U.S. is not seeking a new Cold War. Without mentioning China directly, Biden acknowledged increasing concerns about rising tensions between the two nations. But he said, We are not seeking a new Cold War or a world divided into rigid blocks. The president noted his decision to end America's longest war last month, in Afghanistan, and set the table for his administration to shift U.S. attention to intensive diplomacy with no shortage of crises facing the globe. He said he is driven by a belief that to deliver for our own people, we must also engage deeply with the rest of the world.
Xi said that the world needs to advocate peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom, which are the common values of humanity, and reject the practice of forming small circles or zero-sum games. "Differences and problems among countries, hardly avoidable, need to be handled through dialogue and cooperation on the basis of equality and mutual respect. One country's success does not have to mean another country's failure, and the world is big enough to accommodate common development and progress of all countries," he said.
Xi said that the world needs to advocate peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom, which are the common values of humanity, and reject the practice of forming small circles or zero-sum games. "Differences and problems among countries, hardly avoidable, need to be handled through dialogue and cooperation on the basis of equality and mutual respect. One country's success does not have to mean another country's failure, and the world is big enough to accommodate common development and progress of all countries," he said.
Xi said that China has never and will never invade or bully others, or seek hegemony. "The Chinese people have always celebrated and striven to pursue the vision of peace, amity and harmony," he said, adding that China will continue to bring the world new opportunities through its new development. "China is always a builder of world peace, contributor to global development, defender of the international order and provider of public goods," Xi said. The President said that China will firmly oppose any political manoeuvring in global COVID-19 origins tracing and continue to engage in global science-based coronavirus origins tracing.
