{"id":2402,"date":"2021-07-12T21:07:26","date_gmt":"2021-07-12T21:07:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/?p=2402"},"modified":"2021-07-12T21:07:26","modified_gmt":"2021-07-12T21:07:26","slug":"us-must-accept-its-hegemony-is-waning-says-chinese-foreign-vice-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/?p=2402","title":{"rendered":"US Must Accept Its Hegemony Is Waning, Says Chinese Foreign Vice-Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Eduardo Baptista<\/a><\/p>\n

\u25cf Senior official insists that US is still a strong nation and will be hard to overtake, but should not adopt a \u2018cold war mentality\u2019<\/p>\n

\u25cf Le says many countries are ready to support China internationally and criticises Washington for forming \u2018small clubs\u2019 such as the G7 and Quad<\/p>\n

\"le_yucheng.jpg\"<\/p>\n

China\u2019s foreign vice-minister Le Yucheng has called on Washington to accept that \u201cAmerican hegemony\u201d is in decline, but insisted it will be difficult to overtake the United States even within a \u201crelatively long period of time\u201d.<\/p>\n

The US is still the leading power in terms of strength but its adoption of a cold war mentality and creation of \u201csmall clubs\u201d is a sign of ideological decline, Le told media outlet Guancha on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe US decline is not a decline in strength but a decline of hegemony,\u201d Le said. \u201cNo matter a country\u2019s strength, hegemonic power is bound to wither, hegemony is not popular.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he said the US is \u201cstill a strong and large nation in the number one spot\u201d, adding: \u201cIt will be hard to overtake it over a relatively long period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Le said that US-led groupings like the defence-focused Quad, the intelligence-sharing Five Eyes, and the Group of Seven were all examples of Washington trying to define the \u201cinternational community\u201d when there are many more nations willing to support China\u2019s position.<\/p>\n

He also referred to a recent UN vote backed by 44 nations, including the US<\/a>, backed a call for the UN human rights chief to be given access to Xinjiang, where Beijing is accused of the mass detention of Muslim minorities and using forced labour.<\/p>\n

Afterwards, China said that it had won the backing of 90 nations, which had \u201csaid \u2018no\u2019 to anti-China \u2018small clubs\u2019,\u201d according to Le. He said: \u201cThis is the international community\u2019s voice of justice, this is real multilateralism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The remarks come at a time when Beijing is urging the US not to form a relationship rooted in rivalry but to continue engaging with China.<\/p>\n

In an event marking the 50th anniversary of Henry Kissinger\u2019s secret visit to China which set in motion the normalisation of relations, Vice-President Wang Qishan said the biggest challenge facing the US came from within rather than from China.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile the former US secretary of state has called for serious dialogue between China and the United States to avoid \u201ccatastrophe\u201d.<\/p>\n

Between 1979 and 2016, US-China relations were for the most part friendly, mostly because of Washington\u2019s policy of engagement, which assumed that integrating China into the global economy would ensure that political liberalisation would follow.<\/p>\n

Le said that this policy had allowed the two countries to cooperate on issues of global importance, including the 2008 financial crisis and climate change.<\/p>\n

Le\u2019s call comes just two days after 40 progressive groups in the US sent a letter to President Joe Biden and lawmakers urging them to prioritise cooperation with China on climate change and curb its confrontational approach to issues such as Beijing\u2019s crackdown on Hong Kong and treatment of Uygur Muslims in Xinjiang<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Le also accused Biden and his administration of revealing their hegemonic view of the world order and lingering cold war mentality when they spoke of approaching China \u201cfrom a position of strength\u201d.<\/p>\n

The phrase also irked China\u2019s foreign policy chief Yang Jiechi during his March meeting with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in Alaska.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest challenge faced by a superpower like the United States will always come from within, and destroying China is by no means a prescription for solving American problems,\u201d Le said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope that the United States will return to reason and the right path of dialogue and cooperation, no need to turn resisting China into a policy, nor containing China into \u2018political correctness\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Le also referred to the Build Back Better World plan advocated by the United States at the recent G7 meeting to counter China\u2019s Belt and Road Initiative, saying China welcomes other nations\u2019 efforts to boost infrastructure development.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope the US and Western countries can truly implement their infrastructure plans, build more roads and bridges for developing countries, and create more jobs and welfare for them, instead of interfering in other countries\u2019 internal affairs and forcibly exporting Western values,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Le has been a moderate voice among Beijing\u2019s diplomatic corps, being the first to send an olive branch to the US after last year\u2019s election and penning long commentaries in state-run media calling for US-China dialogue at all levels of government and among think tanks and the media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Eduardo Baptista \u25cf Senior official insists that US is still a strong nation and will be hard to overtake, but should not adopt a \u2018cold war mentality\u2019 \u25cf Le says many countries are ready to support China internationally and criticises Washington for forming \u2018small clubs\u2019 such as the G7 and Quad China\u2019s foreign vice-minister […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2403,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402\/revisions\/2403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}