China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, cast his country as a bulwark for peace and stability in a world thrown into chaos by the Trump administration. He warned of a return to the law of the jungle if more countries act like the United States in pursuing its own interests above all else.
As the Trump administration upends global trade relations and threatens to abandon alliances, China is trying to burnish its image at home and abroad and take swipes at Western dominance. “We will provide certainty to this uncertain world,” Mr. Wang told reporters in Beijing on Friday.
Yet Mr. Wang’s depiction of China’s role conveniently downplayed the frictions it, too, has caused. Chinese industrial policy has flooded the world with Chinese goods and fueled massive trade imbalances. China’s air force menaces the self-governed island of Taiwan on a daily basis. Its navy has held live-fire exercises near Australia and Vietnam.
On Friday, however, China pointed the finger at the United States, which has withdrawn from international groups and pacts like the World Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement. The Trump administration has also unsettled its allies by threatening to take Greenland and apparently taking Russia’s side in its war on Ukraine.
“Great powers should shoulder their international obligations and fulfill their role as great powers,” Mr. Wang said. “They should not be profit-oriented, let alone bullying.”
He made no mention of China’s own muscle flexing, which has fueled tensions in the region. Chinese Coast Guard ships, for instance, enforce Beijing’s disputed claims to wide swaths of the South China Sea by sometimes ramming and swiping Philippine vessels. (Mr. Wang described China’s activity in the region as defensive and portrayed the Philippines as a Western pawn.)
His rhetoric, which casts China as a victim of American aggression, plays well with the domestic audience. He attributed China’s economic woes, for instance, in part to American tariffs and technology restrictions.
At the same time, Mr. Wang sought to bolster confidence in China’s prospects. Beijing has tried to court foreign investment, which has declined in the face of weak growth, China’s heavy-handed response to the Covid pandemic and stricter national security laws.
He vowed that the economy would rebound, saying it had shown its resilience by overcoming the 2008 global financial crisis. He said China was entering a new phase defined by “even more wonderful, high-quality development,” a reference to Beijing’s strategy of trying to power its economy with leading technology like electric vehicles.
But the economy faces deep-rooted problems like high youth unemployment, rising government debt, and a real estate crisis that has wiped out a significant amount of household wealth and made many Chinese consumers unwilling to spend.
Things could get worse if the trade spat between China and the United States continues to escalate. The Trump administration has slapped a cumulative 20 percent tariff on Chinese goods, calling it retaliation for Beijing not doing enough to stem the flow of fentanyl and migrants into the United States.
Mr. Wang said Beijing would firmly strike back at the Trump administration if it imposed more tariffs.
“If you choose to cooperate, you will achieve mutual benefit and win-win results; if you blindly exert pressure, China will definitely, resolutely counter,” Mr. Wang said.
Mr. Wang said the United States should “look within” for solutions to its fentanyl crisis and not blame countries like China for the problem, let alone impose tariffs on them. He also accused the Trump administration of being “two-faced” toward China — a nod to Mr. Trump’s approach of publicly offering overtures toward China’s leader, Xi Jinping, while hitting the country with trade measures.
“No country can fantasize that it can suppress and contain China while at the same time develop good relations with China,” Mr. Wang said.
Earlier this week, Chinese diplomats used even firmer rhetoric in responding to Mr. Trump’s tariffs. “If the U.S. has other intentions and insists on a tariff war, trade war or any other war, China will fight to the end,” Lin Jian, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, said on Tuesday.
Still, with its economy in the doldrums, China can’t afford to let the trade war spiral out of control. Even as it has pushed back, the government has urged the United States to engage with China through talks, as equals. On Thursday, China’s commerce minister, Wang Wentao, told reporters that he had written to the U.S. commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, and the U.S. trade representative, Jamieson Greer, last month to invite them to meet.
Beijing appears unsure of Mr. Trump’s intentions and is waiting to see if his tariffs are a bargaining tactic that eventually leads the Trump administration to request trade talks. Last month, Mr. Trump told reporters that a trade agreement with China was “possible.” That could include rehashing an unfulfilled $200 billion trade deal he struck with Mr. Xi during his first term.
Alexandra Stevenson and Berry Wang contributed reporting.
