China Hits US with a List of Grievances

On Monday, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Xie Feng accused the U.S. of “wrongdoings” that have worsened their bilateral relations and gave Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman a list of demands and complaints, according to the Chinese.

During the talks in the city of Tianjin near Beijing, Xie accused the U.S. of treating China as an “imagined enemy,” which has led to a stalemate in relations and provoked a risk of “serious consequences,” as announced by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Xie said after the meeting that China “expressed its strong dissatisfaction over the erroneous remarks and actions of the U.S.”* in tracing the COVID-19 origin, and its stance on Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and the South China Sea.

List of Actions

The vice minister added that China gave Sherman a list of actions that Washington should take in order to “correct its wrong politics,” and a list of matters that concern the Chinese government.

Among the demands, China asked the U.S. to revoke visa restrictions on Chinese students and members of the Communist Party of China and their relatives, to lift sanctions on Chinese officials and state authorities, to lift restrictions on the Confucius Institutes and Chinese companies, to stop labelling Chinese media in the U.S. as “foreign agents,” and to withdraw extradition of Huawei Technologies Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou.

On the second list, Beijing complained about the unfair treatment of Chinese citizens, embassies and consulates in the U.S. It also expressed concerns about the rise in anti-Asian and anti-Chinese tendencies, and cases of violence against the Chinese.

U.S.-China Talks

The talks between Sherman and Xie mark yet another face-to-face meeting between senior U.S. and Chinese officials. In March, leading diplomats from both countries met in Alaska, but the talks were dominated by a tense atmosphere and brought no breakthrough.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese side also adopted a confrontational tone during the Monday meeting in Tianjin. Xie assessed, among others, that the U.S. is the “inventor, and patent and intellectual property owner of coercive diplomacy,” and that it is in no position to lecture other countries on democracy and human rights. He accused the U.S. of having engaged in genocide against Native Americans throughout history and of causing wars in the world. He also pointed out that it is responsible for over 620,000 deaths to COVID-19.

U.S.-China relations have dramatically worsened in recent years and are now described as the worst in decades. Washington is accusing Beijing of, among other things, committing genocide against Uighurs and other Muslim minority groups, limiting the autonomy of Hong Kong, withholding data on the COVID-19 pandemic and threatening Taiwan and other countries on the South China Sea. The authorities of the PRC reject all those accusations and respond to sanctions with retaliation.

*Editor’s Note: This quote, though correctly translated, could not be verified.