China’s new foreign minister warned that soaring U.S.-China tensions risk blowing past any guardrails in the relationship, showing that divisions between the world’s biggest economies are becoming more entrenched.
"The U.S. claims that it seeks to outcompete China but does not seek conflict,” Foreign Minister Qin Gang said Tuesday at his first news briefing since taking office late last year. "Yet in reality, its so-called competition aims to contain and suppress China in all respects and get the two countries locked in a zero-sum game.”
Washington’s approach toward Beijing "is a reckless gamble with the stakes being the fundamental interests of the two peoples and even the future of humanity,” he added.