China's ambassador to the US: Is America willing to live with China? -

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Cui spoke with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in an unique interview on Saturday, after a dizzying few days in the souring relationship between the US and China.

Earlier this week, it emerged that the White House is reportedly considering banning members of the Chinese Communist Party from getting into the US, and on Thursday the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused America of oppressing and bullying China.

In response to claims by some in the West that below President Xi Jinping, China has grow to be extra assertive, expansionist and repressive energy, Cui mentioned “people have to fully recognize the realities of today’s world.”

“We certainly have the legitimate right to build our country into a modernized, strong, prosperous country, like every other country in the world,” the ambassador mentioned.

“I think that the fundamental question for the United States is very simple,” he mentioned. “Is the United States ready or willing to live with another country with a very different culture, a very different political and economic system … in peace and cooperate on so many and still growing global challenges?”

Table of Contents

Hong Kong

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump issued an government order revoking the US’s special relationship with Hong Kong, on the grounds {that a} new safety regulation imposed by Beijing means the metropolis is now not sufficiently autonomous from China to justify particular therapy. The particular standing had beforehand exempted Hong Kong from sure tariffs, and bestowed different privileges.

US-China relations are at an all time low, but Trump still seems unsure how to handle Beijing

Critics of the regulation say it undercuts political and authorized freedoms which have existed in Hong Kong since Britain handed the former colony to China in 1997.

The regulation introduces 4 new crimes: secession, subversion, terrorist actions and collusion with a international nation, which carry most sentences of life in jail. It additionally places international residents who criticize the Chinese authorities anyplace in the world liable to jail in the event that they set foot in the metropolis — even when they’re simply transiting via its airport.

But Cui repeated what many mainland Chinese and Hong Kong officers have mentioned in current weeks: that the regulation upholds the “one country, two systems” framework that governs Hong Kong, and can make the metropolis “more stable.”

“People could have a more predictable, safer environment to do their business in Hong Kong. That’s the real purpose of this law,” he mentioned.

Xinjiang

On Monday, Beijing announced sanctions towards US officers, together with Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, in retaliation for measures introduced by Washington final week over Beijing’s alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

Washington’s sanctions on Chinese officers embrace the freezing of their American belongings and a block stopping US nationals from conducting enterprise with them. Those sanctioned by the US additionally face visa restrictions, stopping them and their households from getting into the US.

China announces retaliatory sanctions on US officials over Xinjiang measures

The US State Department estimates that since 2015 as many as 2 million Muslim-majority Uyghurs and different Turkic minorities have been imprisoned in huge re-education camps in Xinjiang, as a part of a area vast crackdown by Beijing. They are reportedly “subjected to torture, cruel and inhumane treatment such as physical and sexual abuse, forced labor, and death.”

Reports by the Associated Press and scholar Adrian Zenz for the Jamestown Foundation say that China is participating in primarily compelled inhabitants management, together with sterilization and abortions, and analysts say China’s actions in Xinjiang represent the authorized definition of genocide.

Cui denied that there have been any mechanisms resembling sterilization or any makes an attempt at compelled inhabitants management of the Uyghurs.

“I don’t know how absurd all these fabrications can go,” Cui mentioned, including that folks had been basing their perceptions or judgment on stories of “questionable sources.”

South China Sea

On Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mentioned America rejects most of China’s claims over the South China Sea. Beijing considers virtually all of the 1.three million sq. mile South China Sea its sovereign territory and lately has constructed up navy fortifications on a number of islands there.

In 2016, a global tribunal in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines in a maritime dispute, concluding China has no authorized foundation to declare historic rights to the bulk of the sea.

Cui mentioned China “will not participate in such a ruling” and it was “not based on very solid, legal ground.”

“We have a very strong position on our sovereignty on the territorial claim in the region. And our claims have very strong historic and legal foundation. But still, we want to solve all the disputes with other countries, with other claimant countries through diplomatic negotiation,” he mentioned.

Cui blamed US intervention in the South China Sea for destabilizing the area.

“Without outside interference, the situation in the region was cooling down,” Cui mentioned. “But, unfortunately, countries like the US particularly, the United States, is trying very hard to intervene, to send their military, to strengthen their military presence in the region. The intensity and the frequency is so high.”

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