The United States said on Monday that Chinese President Xi Jinping was steering his country in a more “aggressive” direction but renewed his interest in cooperating with the Asian giant on shared interests as its leader prepares for a historic third term. .
Xi is due to be ratified within a week as secretary general of the Communist Party of China (CPC), a prelude to his re-election next year as China’s president, and cement himself as the most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.
“We have seen a very different China emerge in recent years under the leadership of Xi Jinping,” said the head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken.
In and out
“It is more repressive at home, it is more aggressive abroad. And in many cases that poses a challenge to our own interests as well as our own values,” she said at a forum at Stanford University, alongside former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
But Blinken said the relationship between the world’s two largest economies should not be reduced to a “bumper sticker.”