Seeking cooperation is necessity rather than choice for China, US: Chinese FM spokesperson

BEIJING -- For China-US relations, playing up competition does all harm and no good, and seeking cooperation is a necessity rather than a choice, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Friday.

"Facts prove once and again that China and the United States stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation," spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a daily news briefing when responding to query about US media reports about competition and cooperation between the two countries.

Wang said that currently, every time the United States talks about its relations with China, it mentions competition, as if China-US relations are mainly about, or even, all about competition.

"China's attitude and position is clear. Competition should help promote each other's progress and improvement and meet the common interests and aspirations of both sides and the wider world. It is not about using every means possible to trip up or thwart the other side," Wang said.

"We never shy away from or fear competition, but competition should be fair and reasonable; it should be healthy and rule-based; there should be red lines and restricted zones; market economy rules and basic norms governing international relations should not be ignored; and issues bearing on core interests should not be used as tools for competition or means of provocation," he added.

Competition is not the sum total of China-US relations, Wang said. "We oppose using competition to define the whole of China-US ties. In fact, complementarity far outweighs competition in the economic relations between the two countries, and cooperation in this area is in nature mutually beneficial."

The two countries need to avoid the way of thinking focusing only on competition and confrontation, accommodate each other's interests and concerns, seek the broadest areas of exchanges and cooperation, pursue the biggest common ground for win-win cooperation, and jointly contribute the wisdom and strength of two major countries to the development and common prosperity of the two countries as well as world peace and development, he added.