This is the second appeal for calm by the Chinese president, in a little over a month, amid a bitter technology and trade war between the world’s two biggest economies
Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Wednesday that China is willing to cooperate with the United States to manage differences and contribute to each other’s progress, state media reported.
Xi said both sides needed to work together to respond to global challenges and push for common prosperity, in a letter delivered at an annual dinner of New York-headquartered National Committee on United States-China Relations.
Whether or not the United States and China could establish the “right” way of getting along would be crucial to for “world peace and development, and the future of mankind,” Xinhua quoted Xi as saying.
This is the second appeal for calm by the Chinese president, in a little over a month, as ties between the world’s two biggest economies spiral over issues ranging from technology and trade to geopolitics.
The US last week further tightened its chip export curbs, with a clampdown on shipments of artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductors to China.
Meanwhile, in tit-for-tat restrictions, China has been blocking global shipments of two key chipmaking metals — gallium and germanium — since September. Last week, days after US curbs were announced, Beijing also announced plans to restrict exports of key electric vehicle (EV) battery metal graphite.
Xi’s call for “peaceful coexistence” on Wednesday also comes on the heels of a visit to the US by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Wang’s trip will begin on Thursday and last through Saturday. The visit is being seen as an effort to set the stage for a meeting between US President Joe Biden and Xi at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco this November.
Several top US officials including State Secretary Antony Blinken met their Chinese counterparts in Beijing this summer.
Washington’s top priority has been to ensure the intense competition between the world’s two biggest economies and their disagreements over a host of issues from trade to Taiwan and the South China Sea does not veer into conflict.
“Chinese observers believe the visit (by Wang) will pave the way for a possible meeting between the heads of the two states but added that Washington needs to make concrete efforts to address Beijing’s concerns and show its sincerity,” China’s state-controlled Global Times wrote in a commentary.