Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Thursday his country expects the United States to change its stance on China’s pursuit of development, taking a more objective and rational approach.

“The main reason for the serious challenges in China-US relations [during the Trump Administration] has been that some US politicians view the relations within a mentality of ‘zero-sum game’ and Cold War-era ideas. They do not want to recognize and respect China’s right to development,” Wang told Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.

The Chinese foreign minister described such an approach by US counterparts as one-sided and aggressive, saying that it goes against the norms of international relations and fair market competition rules.

“We hope that the United States will go back to rationality, treat objectively and fairly the development of China and other countries with actively developing economies, move toward China, and facilitate the return of China-US relations as soon as possible onto the path of healthy and stable development,” the minister said.

The United States and China have been on strained terms since 2017, when Washington’s updated National Security Strategy portrayed China, a long-time advocate of a multipolar world, as a major threat to the US interests in world politics.

The bilateral relationship further soared in the summer of 2018, when Washington hiked duties on $50 billion worth of Chinese imports in a bid to balance the trade deficit.

Since then, the two countries have exchanged several rounds of reciprocal tariffs and waged a brutal economic confrontation with diplomatic repercussions, which is often referred to as a trade war.

Source: Agencies