Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated that China will “play to the end” if the United States (U.S.) is committed to suppressing his country, even though Beijing does not seek conflict with Washington.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Wang said that China will respond firmly to unilateral “bullying” practices but hopes that the U.S. can cooperate with it in the same direction.
This month, U.S. President Donald Trump imposed an additional 10 percent tariff on all Chinese goods despite what he described as a “good” phone conversation with Chinese leader Xi Jinping a few weeks ago.
The tariffs prompted China to retaliate with duties of up to 15 percent on some U.S. imports, once again fueling fears of a full-scale trade war between the world’s largest economies.
In the weeks before Trump took the oath of office, the Biden administration imposed greater restrictions on advanced technology that could be sold to China, in further efforts to halt Chinese firms from developing high-tech chips that could be used in Chinese military applications.
Beijing claims that these measures are part of a long-term plan to curb China’s technological advancement.
“China has developed and grown by overcoming difficulties and obstacles, and it will not be afraid,” Wang stated at the conference in Munich, which was also attended by U.S. Vice President Vance.
Wang then cited several Chinese proverbs, including one from the first chapter of the Chinese classic Book of Changes, known as I Ching:
“The movement of heaven is full of power. Thus the superior man makes himself strong and untiring.“
“These lines are difficult to translate; you can ask DeepSeek to help you,” Wang said with a smile.
DeepSeek is an artificial intelligence (AI) application developed by China despite U.S. chip restrictions, an application that threatens to challenge the dominance of U.S. generative AI chatbots, including ChatGPT.
