Minister reviews diplomacy in 2019

No person or force can stop the 1.4 billion Chinese people marching toward modernization as China will firmly safeguard its core interests and legitimate development rights, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a year-end interview on China's diplomacy published on Tuesday.

Wang said that this year should have been an important anniversary for China and the United States to mark and look into the future, given that it is the 40th anniversary of establishing diplomatic ties between the two countries.

"Regrettably, the US has successively imposed restrictions and put pressure on China in various fields such as trade and economics, science and technology, and interfered and engaged in smearing China on a series of issues concerning its territorial sovereignty," Wang said.

What the US has done not only has undermined China-US mutual trust established over the past four decades, but also affected the entire world's stability and development, he said.

Wang stressed that China always wants to talk and negotiate with the US on the basis of mutual respect, and the phase one trade deal is an example of how problems can be solved through equal dialogue between the two nations.

"We hope the US will rebuild an objective and correct acknowledgment of China, and we urge the US to return to a rational and practical policy toward China," he said.

In the interview, Wang reiterated that any attempt to interfere in China's internal affairs or hold back China's development "will be crushed by the wheels of history".

"We firmly support the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government in ending the violence and chaos, restoring order and exercising law-based governance," he said.

Referring to the Taiwan question, Wang said that this year saw China establish diplomatic relations with the Solomon Islands and resume diplomatic ties with Kiribati after both severed so-called "diplomatic relations" with Taiwan authorities, more widely establishing the one-China consensus in the international community than ever before.

In the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, China has ensured the safety and well-being of the over 24 million fellow countrymen of different ethnic groups, allowing no space for terrorism and radical ideologies, he said.

Calling the China-Russia relationship a prime example of harmonious coexistence and win-win cooperation between countries, Wang said Beijing and Moscow have shown firm mutual support on issues concerning each other's core interests and worked together to resist attempts by external forces to keep them down.

"We have enhanced back-to-back coordination in international affairs and stood shoulder-to-shoulder in opposing power politics and bullying practices," he said.

Wang said the rising trend of unilateralism and the supremacy of unchecked national interests threaten to collapse the international order and system that all countries rely on for development, with dire consequences for small and medium-sized countries.

"The international community has no choice but to join hands and firmly resist this perverse trend," he said.

As two major civilizations and forces, Wang said China and Europe stand together for a multipolar world and greater democracy in international relations, for multilateralism and the basic norms of international relations, and for free trade and an open world economy.

"Working together, China and Europe can provide more stability to an otherwise uncertain world," he said.