China’s Xi Hits Out at ‘Selfish Agendas’ of U.S.

Date: 17 November 2018 - 21:38

News ID: ۵۹۷۳۷

PORT MORESBY (Dispatches) -- China's leader Xi Jinping and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence traded barbs in speeches to a summit of world leaders Saturday, outlining competing visions for global leadership.
Pence said there would be no letup in President Donald Trump's policy of combating China's mercantilist trade policy and intellectual property theft that has erupted into a trade war between the two world powers this year.
He harshly criticized China's global infrastructure drive, calling many of the projects low quality and saddling developing countries with loans they can't afford.
Pence also announced the U.S. would be involved in a plan by its ally Australia to jointly develop a naval base in Papua New Guinea, where the summit is being held. China has been intensely wooing Papua New Guinea with aid and loans for infrastructure.
Xi, who spoke before Pence, said countries are facing a choice of cooperation or confrontation as protectionism and unilateralism spreads.
Xi expressed support for the global free trading system that has underpinned his country's rise to world's second-biggest economy after the U.S.
"Mankind has once again reached a crossroads," he said. "Which direction should we choose? Cooperation or confrontation? Openness or closing doors. Win-win progress or a zero sum game?"
He lashed out at "America First" trade protectionism and in an open criticism of Washington underlined that global trade rules should not be applied "with double standards or selfish agendas."
Xi also defended China's "belt and road" infrastructure initiative, insisting it was "not a trap" amid criticism from the United States among others.
"It is not designed to serve any hidden geopolitical agenda, it is not targeted against anyone and it does not exclude anyone... nor is it a trap as some people have labeled it," Xi told business leaders ahead of an APEC summit.
The "belt and road” initiative is a massive infrastructure and development project spanning Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Africa.
Pence began his speech at the summit by slamming the initiative, claiming that Chinese funding of infrastructure project was burdening developing nations with debt.
Leaders of Pacific Rim countries that make up 60 percent of the world economy were meeting in the capital of Papua New Guinea for an annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.