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Dewey Sim

“Grave challenges” confront Sino-US ties, Beijing’s envoy to Washington said on Friday as he called out the “political correctness” in the United States of being tough on China.
Addressing a conference in Tacoma, Washington state via video link, Xie Feng called for deeper subnational exchanges, saying it would offer a more solid foundation for ties and “greater room” to move relations forward.
But there are fresh challenges in the way of these more local exchanges. “In recent years, the so-called political correctness of being tough on China has been spreading in the United States, casting a chilling effect on sister-city cooperation and subnational interactions,” Xie said.
However, setbacks in US-China ties would not change the “fundamental wish of our peoples for friendship and cooperation”, he added.
“The China-US relationship is still facing grave challenges. We need to pool strength from all to get the relationship better,” he said in a transcript of the speech posted on the embassy’s website.
Xie made the comments at the sixth US-China Sister Cities Summit co-sponsored by the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, an agency under China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to promote exchanges with other countries.

According to Xie, the event was the first on China-US subnational exchanges held in the US in five years.
Tacoma, a port city that Chinese President Xi Jinping visited in 2015, became sister cities with the southeastern Chinese city of Fuzhou in 1994.
In his address, the Chinese envoy said sister-city relationships between China and the US had flourished, with 286 pairs already established.
“Serving as bridges for mutual understanding and trust, they have nurtured goodwill between the two peoples, and injected vigour into China-US relations,” he said.
Xie noted that since the start of last year, more than 30 delegations from Chinese provinces and cities had visited the US, and these exchanges had helped to “stabilise” US-China ties.
He expected greater exchanges and visits “so that, drop by drop, we can thaw the ice of misunderstanding, and ultimately form a vast ocean of friendship between our two peoples”.


China and the US have sought to ease their strained ties, including with the closely watched meeting between Xi and US President Joe Biden in November.
There has been more engagement since then, including on climate change and artificial intelligence.
But in June, US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said Beijing had made people-to-people exchanges “impossible”, including by preventing Chinese nationals from taking part in American government programmes.
Xie, in his speech on Friday, also said that subnational cooperation between Chinese and American cities had brought benefits to both sides, noting that China was the top export market for three US states and in the top three markets for 32.
He urged American firms to seize opportunities brought by China’s “openness and development”, and called for an expansion in cooperation between sister cities.
“A brighter future for the 1.7 billion people of our two countries cannot be achieved without a healthy and stable China-US relationship,” he said.
“It is our sincere hope that our sister-city relationships will continue to be a fountain of strength, giving strong and sustained impetus to the broader bilateral relationship, so as to keep it surging forward.”
Tacoma mayor Victoria Woodards said in her speech that sister-city ties between the US and China had allowed the two countries to “build bridges of friendship and cooperation that transcends borders”.
“I truly believe that if we can work together to address all the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead, we can and we will create a future that is bright and prosperous for every one of our communities,” she said.


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Ambassador Xie Feng addresses the China-US Sister Cities Summit in Tacoma via video link on Friday. Photo: X/ AmbXieFeng

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Diplomacy

Sister-city relations offer room for the two countries to advance relations, Xie Feng tells conference in Washington state


Sister-city relations offer room for the two countries to advance relations, Xie Feng tells conference in Washington state.


J.D. Vance