Rich Calder

July 10, 2022

-New York Post

 

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi blamed the United States on Saturday for causing relations between the two countries to shift further apart, alleging most Americans have a misperception of China as a threat.

“Many people believe that the United States is suffering from a China-phobia,” he said in a statement released by his ministry after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the G20 gathering in Bali, Indonesia.

“If such threat-expansion is allowed to grow, U.S. policy toward China will be a dead end with no way out,” Wang said.

Blinken said he made it known in the five hour face-to-face session with Wang — their first since October — that China’s backing for Russia’s war in Ukraine is hurting U.S.-Chinese relations at a time when they’re already beset by rifts and hostility over many other issues.

“We are concerned about the PRC’s alignment with Russia,” Blinken told reporters after the meeting, NPR reported.

He also insisted it is difficult to be “neutral” in a conflict in which there is a clear aggressor but that even it were possible, “I don’t believe China is acting in a way that is neutral.”

c. NEW YORK POST