Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng reportedly met with U.S. Executive Deputy Secretary Wendy R. Sherman in Tianjin on July 26.
In his speech on the centenary of the founding of the Party, Xi Jinping added the term “powerful abilities” after the usual “strong determination and firm will,” and this time Xie Feng emphasized this statement to the United States again.
Xi’s statement was interpreted as confirmation that China already has the military power to recover Taiwan by force. And the fact that Xie Feng proposed two checklists as prerequisites for restoring relations with the U.S. during the talks is a shift in China’s foreign policy toward the U.S.
China has always been accustomed to responding passively to U.S. accusations and attacks, while this time it showed an offensive posture toward the U.S., indicating that Beijing is impatient with the confrontational behaviors of President Biden since he took office and is no longer afraid of head-to-head with the United States.
At a briefing held after the talks, Xie Feng reportedly said that in addition to stating its principled position on China-US relations and urging the US side to change its extremely wrong perceptions of China and its extremely dangerous policies toward China, China also focused on expressing once again its strong dissatisfaction to the U.S. side over its wrong words and actions on issues such as the tracing of the coronavirus, Taiwan, border-related issues, Hong Kong-related issues and the South China Sea, demanding that the U.S. side immediately stop interfering in China’s internal affairs, stop damaging China’s interests, stop stepping on red lines and playing with fire and provocation, and stop engaging in group confrontation under the guise of values. We urge the U.S. side to never underestimate the strong determination, firm will and powerful abilities of the 1.4 billion Chinese people to safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests.