Chinese language Overseas Minister Wang Yi attends a press convention on China’s international coverage and exterior relations on the sidelines of the fourth session of the 14th Nationwide Folks’s Congress (NPC) on March 8, 2026 in Beijing, China.
Vcg | Visible China Group | Getty Pictures
BEIJING — China’s high diplomat Wang Yi underscored Sunday the advantages of interacting with the U.S., and signaled preparations are underway for a deliberate assembly between the 2 nations’ leaders amid variations over the battle in Iran and commerce tariffs.
“The agenda of high-level exchanges is already on the desk,” Wang informed reporters in Mandarin Chinese language, in keeping with an official translation. “What the 2 sides must do now could be make thorough preparations accordingly, create an appropriate atmosphere, handle the dangers that do exist and take away pointless disruptions.”
“Turning our backs on one another would solely result in mutual misperception and miscalculation,” he mentioned. “Sliding into battle or confrontation would solely drag the entire world down.”
After an in-person assembly in South Korea within the fall, Chinese language President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump indicated plans to go to one another’s nations.
Trump is scheduled to go to China from March 31 to April 2, which might be the primary journey to the nation by a sitting U.S. president since 2017.
Nonetheless, Beijing has but to verify the precise dates of a Trump go to. Wang didn’t elaborate both, however famous the U.S. and Chinese language presidents’ high-level interactions have “offered [an] necessary strategic safeguard for the China-U.S. relationship to enhance and transfer ahead.”
Some analysts have raised doubts over whether or not the journey will occur on schedule, particularly since it could doubtless come shortly after joint U.S.-Israeli assaults on Iran that killed its Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the U.S. seize of Venezuelan chief Nicolas Maduro.
Wang didn’t identify both particular person in his remarks to the press Sunday morning however reiterated Beijing’s requires a ceasefire within the Iran battle.
“This can be a battle that ought to not have occurred,” he mentioned. “It’s a battle that does nobody any good.”
Wang has held telephone calls with no less than seven international ministers — together with these of Russia, Iran and Israel — because the joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran started on Feb. 28, in keeping with official readouts.
He was talking Sunday to reporters on the sidelines of China’s eight-day annual parliamentary assembly that’s set to wrap Thursday. China’s high leaders, together with President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiang and Vice Premier He Lifeng, are assembly in Beijing with delegates from throughout the nation.
Tariffs in query
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The bilateral discussions come because the U.S. and China reached a fragile truce in October for reducing tariffs on one another’s items to under 50% for one yr. The 2 nations had beforehand ratcheted up duties to effectively over 100% in the course of the top of tensions final spring.
In response to a query about Trump’s casting of U.S.-China relations as a brand new “G2” for main the world, Wang pushed again in opposition to the concept two nations alone would accomplish that, as a substitute emphasizing multipolarity.
With out naming the U.S., Wang warned in opposition to “erecting tariff obstacles and pushing [for] financial and technological decoupling.”
“That is no totally different from utilizing kindling to place out a fireplace,” he mentioned. “You’ll solely get burned.”
