Trade Cases

Trump Casts China in Negative Light
Written by Sandy Williams
December 19, 2017
China is not happy about being cast as the enemy by President Trump’s first national security strategy, released on Monday.
In a turnabout from the friendly overtures made by the U.S. administration to China, Trump accused China of “attempting to erode American security and prosperity.”
“For decades, U.S. policy was rooted in the belief that support for China’s rise and for its integration into the post-war international order would liberalize China. Contrary to our hopes, China expanded its power at the expense of the sovereignty of others,” said Trump in the report.
“China gathers and exploits data on an unrivaled scale and spreads features of its authoritarian system, including corruption and the use of surveillance. It is building the most capable and well-funded military in the world, after our own. Its nuclear arsenal is growing and diversifying.”
Trump then takes aim at Chinese students studying at American universities. “Part of China’s military modernization and economic expansion is due to its access to the U.S. innovation economy, including America’s world-class universities.”
China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying called the report a “futile effort to distort reality.”
“The people of China have full confidence in the development path of socialism with Chinese characteristics that they have chosen,” Hua said.
She pointed out that China accounts for more than 30 percent of the world’s economic growth and, as such, the U.S. and China should work together.
“Cooperation is the only correct choice for the U.S. and China; a win-win approach will lead to a better future,” Hua said.
A statement released by China’s embasasy said, “It is completely egotistical for any nation to put its interests above the common interests of other nations and the international community. It will lead to a path of self-isolation. The Americans on one hand say they want to develop a partnership with China, but on the other hand they take an oppositional stance. This is contradictory,” it stated.

Sandy Williams
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