On 26 July, during his talks with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng said the Chinese believe that one must not do to others what one does not like to be done to himself.
Desire to seek hegemony or territorial expansion is simply not in the Chinese DNA. And China has never coerced any country. China responds to foreign interference with legitimate and lawful countermeasures. The aim is to defend the legitimate rights and interests of the country and uphold international equity and justice. China has never gone to others’ doorsteps to provoke trouble.
Neither has China ever stretched its arm into the households of others, still less has China ever occupied any inch of other countries’ territory. It is the United States, not anybody else, who is the inventor, and patent and intellectual property owner of coercive diplomacy. It is the United States who has engaged in broad unilateral sanctions, long-arm jurisdiction and interference in other countries’ internal affairs.
The U.S. notion of “engaging other countries from a position of strength” is just another version of the big bullying the small and “might is right”. This is pure coercive diplomacy.