Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi gave an interview to Chinese state television Saturday in which he credited the authoritarian rule of the Communist Party with defeating the coronavirus pandemic and celebrated the incoming Biden administration in America as a “new window of hope” for relations between the U.S. and China.
Wang said the “sudden onslaught of COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] has accelerated the once-in-a-century transformation in an increasingly fluid and changing world,” presenting the Chinese system as a model for the world to follow:
Here in China, the CPC [Communist Party of China] Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has rallied the nation behind a common purpose, and secured major strategic gains in the fight against COVID-19. We have also scored decisive successes in the three critical battles against poverty, pollution and potential risks. The whole country is on course to fully build a moderately prosperous society. The recent Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee set a great vision for China’s development in the coming years and charted the course for national rejuvenation. The unity and perseverance of the Chinese people have impressed the world. The resilience and dynamism of China’s development have won global recognition.
Wang claimed China was able to build “a strong defense against the virus at our borders” without mentioning Beijing’s implacable opposition to other nations defending themselves against the virus during the crucial months of spread in the late winter of 2020. Instead, he credited China with helping to “erect an international bulwark against the coronavirus” and said his government has “made more friends in the world” during the pandemic it unleashed.
“We have been firm in safeguarding our national interests. We have responded resolutely and rationally to unjustified moves by the United States. We have handled issues relating to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet with justified, strong and proportionate countermeasures and won one fierce battle after another in international organizations, vigorously safeguarding China’s sovereignty, dignity and development interests,” Wang said, delivering a jaw-dropping defense of China’s authoritarian atrocities.
Wang was comparably shameless in praising China for swiftly reporting coronavirus cases to the world — the exact opposite of the Communist Party’s deadly campaign of secrecy and its vicious oppression of heroic whistleblowers.
“When hit by an unknown coronavirus, China took immediate actions to carry out epidemiological investigation, identify the pathogen and publicize key information including the genome sequencing of the virus. All this sounded alarm bells across the world,” he said.
Wang bemoaned the “serious misconceptions of U.S. policymakers about China” and hoped the change of U.S. administrations would stave off America’s plan to start a “new Cold War”:
In recent years, China-US relations have run into unprecedented difficulties. Fundamentally, it all comes down to the serious misconceptions of US policymakers about China. Some see China as the so-called biggest threat and their China policy based on this misperception is simply wrong. What has happened proves that the US attempt to suppress China and start a new Cold War has not just seriously harmed the interests of the two peoples, but also caused severe disruptions to the world. Such a policy will find no support and is doomed to fail.
China-US relations have come to a new crossroads, and a new window of hope is opening. We hope that the next US administration will return to a sensible approach, resume dialogue with China, restore normalcy to the bilateral relations and restart cooperation.
China’s state-run Global Times analyzed Wang’s interview as a “strong signal to other countries, especially the new US administration, that China’s foreign policy has always been continuous and stable as China always hopes to return to a mutually beneficial and win-win track.”
“If the Biden administration understands China’s determination to shape a healthy bilateral relationship and carry out a rational China policy, there is hope that the two countries can overcome the difficulties that the Trump administration has brought and reach cooperation in many areas that will positively affect long-term diplomacy,” the Global Times wrote.
The analysis quoted various Chinese “experts” to the effect that China’s plan for “win-win cooperation” through projects like the Belt and Road Initiative would move the Communist nation into a position of global leadership, while the remains of the Trump administration’s “unilateralism and protectionism” are eliminated.