Tone of Chinese Response to U.S. Provocations Grows Harsher by the Day

Aug. 5, 2020 (EIRNS)—Over the last 48 hours, the Chinese government and semi-official media continued their noticeably sharp and strident responses to the ongoing attacks against China coming from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and associated neo-con circles in the Trump Administration.

Wang Wenbin, the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, used his daily press briefing Aug. 4 to denounce U.S. escalation on the issue of arms control.

“Since its pullout of the INF Treaty one year ago, the U.S. has kept quitting more international treaties and organizations. It has announced decisions to unsign the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty, unilaterally loosen its standards on Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) export control as a Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) member state, and has not agreed to extend the New START Treaty yet.”

Wang continued:

“The above-mentioned negative measures of the U.S. have seriously undermined regional and global peace and security, impacted the international arms control and disarmament process, weakened mutual trust between major countries, damaged global strategic stability, and exposed its true intention of pursuing unilateralism and seeking military hegemony. China firmly opposes the U.S. deployment of land-based medium-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific and Europe. We urge the U.S. side to earnestly respond to the concerns of the international community and do more to contribute to regional and world peace and stability.”

The spokesman also denounced the fact that the U.S. is making it impossible for Chinese journalists to function in the U.S., by refusing to extend existing visas. “While priding itself on freedom of the press, the U.S. now willingly obstructs the Chinese media from doing their job. Such a two-faced behavior exposed its hypocrisy in so-called freedom of the press, nothing short of double standards and hegemonic bullying.” He said China reserved the right to retaliate: “If the U.S. is bent on going down the wrong path and doubles down on its mistakes, China is compelled to make necessary and legitimate reactions to firmly safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.”

Asked about President Trump’s demand that the Chinese company TikTok be sold to a U.S. company before Sept. 15, citing national security concerns, Wang responded:

“For a while, without providing any evidence, the U.S. has stretched the concept of national security and abused its state power to bring down certain non-U.S. enterprises.... If the U.S. goes like this way, then any country can take similar measures against any U.S. company on the grounds of national security. The U.S. must not open Pandora’s box, or it will suffer the consequences.”