China believes that the United States’ deterrence policy toward Beijing and Moscow is destined to fail, China’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Le Yucheng, has said.
“I fully share the standpoint and assessment of [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin regarding this matter,” Yucheng told reporters on Monday.
He added that the United States is trying to “reverse the course of history” by pushing forward its unilateral decisions, but these attempts fail to garner “any support from the international community”.
“I believe that these approaches by the US are destined to fail,” he concluded.
Speaking at an investment forum in Russia earlier this month, President Putin argued that Washington’s main goal is “curbing the development of China and Russia” rather than promoting “balanced international economic relations”.
He described this approach as a “deep” mistake that could backfire on the US.
Relations between Russia and the US have soured significantly since the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, with Moscow taking an increasingly independent posture and NATO boosting its military footprint near Russia’s borders. Russia’s growing defence potential has prompted a number of erratic steps from the Trump administration, including the withdrawal from the INF Treaty and the rumoured plan to pull out of the Open Skies Treaty.
China and the US are embroiled in a large-scale trade dispute amid a broader struggle for global political, economic and technological dominance. That struggle involves US attempts to partly shut China out of the American market and cut its firms' access to burgeoning 5G networks across the globe, as well as challenge its claims in Southeast Asia and counter its growing influence in Africa.