In a congratulatory letter to the Dec. 11 gala dinner in Washington, D.C. of the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC), Chinese President Xi Jinping focused on the importance of cultivating the U.S. relationship, not only for the benefit of the American and Chinese people but “for the future and destiny of the entire humanity,” China Daily reported today. Founded in 1973, the USCBC is a private, non-partisan, non-profit association of more than 270 American companies that do business in China. Its website explains that it is committed to fostering trust and “fueling growth,” by which it contributes to “geopolitical stability and helps companies overcome challenges.”
Read to the gathering by China’s Ambassador to the U.S. Xie Feng, the letter urged the two countries to “continue exploring the right way of our two countries to get along with each other in the new year and realize long-term peaceful coexistence on the planet.” Openness, he said, is a key driving force “for human civilization and progress. We both stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation … the success of one side should be an opportunity rather than a challenge for the others.” Xi emphasized that China is prepared to stay in communication with the U.S. to expand cooperation and will always be committed to reform and opening up.
In his own remarks to the dinner, Ambassador Xie urged Washington not to “weaponize” tariffs or impose tech restrictions on China, warning that this would lead to U.S. isolation. “Shutting China out in the name of `de-risking’ poses the real risk to global industrial and supply chains and exploiting national security as a convenient pretext for suppressing others is itself causing insecurity,” he warned. It would not be wise to underestimate China, he underscored, as any attempt to contain it “is bound to fail.”
President Joe Biden also sent a brief message to the event, read by Commerce Department Undersecretary Marisa Lago, stressing the U.S. commitment to “responsibly managing competition” during his four years in office. In his statement, U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns predicted that U.S.-China ties over the next decade will continue to be “intensive, competitive, complicated [and] challenging.” The U.S. should continue to be an “outward looking country,” he said, a champion of “democratic values, the rule of law and individual human rights.”
