A senior Chinese official said Tuesday that Beijing did not seek to reshape the global order and sought greater US cooperation, in the latest departure from past hawkish rhetoric.
At an event to mark 45 years since Washington and Beijing established relations, Liu Jianchao, who heads the international division of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee, quoted President Xi Jinping as saying China “will not fight a Cold War, or a hot war, with anyone.”
“People in Asia have our own way of dealing with each other which values peace above everything else, and seeks peaceful solutions to all disputes,” Liu said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
“China does not seek to change the current international order. We are one the builders of the current world order and have benefited from it,” he said in fluent English.
“As the world has entered the period of turbulence and transformation, people of all countries are counting on China and the United States to take the lead is resolving more global issues.”
Relations between the world’s two largest economies had sharply deteriorated in recent years, with prominent Chinese diplomats being dubbed “wolf warriors” for their confrontational public statements against the United States.
Asked if there has been a change in approach, Liu said, “I don’t really believe that there has always been a kind of wolf warrior diplomacy, and there’s no talk about coming back to that diplomacy.”
His visit follows a summit in November in California between Xi and President Joe Biden in which China agreed to address key US concerns including by resuming military dialogue and working to combat precursor chemicals to fentanyl, which has caused an addiction epidemic in the United States.
Liu said China wanted “concrete and visible deliverables” on fentanyl.
US analysts have attributed China’s new tone to an eagerness to focus on economic concerns at home and noted that major gaps remain.
Chief among them is Taiwan, the self-governing democracy which China claims.
Liu was also measured in his remarks on Taiwan, declining to say how China would respond to Taiwan’s election on Sunday, but saying that Taiwan was a “red line” for Beijing.
“We take serious(ly) the statements of the United States not supporting Taiwanese independence, and we hope that the US side will honor its commitment.”
The Biden administration describes Beijing as the top challenger to US primacy although it has taken a more measured approach rhetorically than former president Donald Trump, who has made opposition to China a signature issue as he again seeks the White House.
