“Failure to engage between the two nations would only lead to misunderstandings and misjudgements, escalating toward confrontation and harming the world,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi told a press conference on the sidelines of an annual parliament meeting in Beijing.
With the US president focused on the war he and Israel launched against Iran, analysts are watching for signs that his visit to meet Xi will go ahead. China has not previously announced the summit between the leaders of the world’s biggest economies, expected for the end of the month.
‘Donroe Doctrine’ vs belt and road intiative
“The agenda for high-level exchanges (with the US) is on the table,” Wang said. “What is required is for both sides to make thorough preparations to create a conducive environment to manage existing differences,” he added, without giving further details.
In addition to the week-old Iran war, which has killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and more than 1,300 others in the country, according to Tehran, Trump authorised the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January, testing Beijing’s commitment to its strategic partners.
On Iran, Wang urged an immediate halt to military operations, saying the war that should not have happened and that the use of force was not a way to resolve issues. He did not go beyond Beijing’s previous condemnations and expressions of concern, despite reports Tehran had neared a deal to buy supersonic anti-ship missiles from Beijing.
Read: Israel launches fresh attacks on Iran as Trump raises prospect of killing all its potential leaders
Trump’s pursuit of a “Donroe Doctrine” – his rebranding of a 19th-century policy asserting Washington’s zone of influence in the Americas – is crashing into Xi’s flagship Belt and Road and Global Security initiatives, which have been decades in the making and carry significant personal political investment for the Chinese leader.
Trump has also threatened military action against Colombia and Mexico and said Cuba’s communist regime “looks like it’s ready to fall” on its own, raising questions for Latin American countries over how their China ties might protect them if put to the test.
China’s foreign policy has not faced this much scrutiny since the Cold War, said Yasser Nasser, a historian at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
“In some senses it is existential in that it reveals that Chinese economic commitments or commitments to arms deals, for example, do not translate to directly confronting the US or preventing interventions as, for example, it did during the Vietnam War.”
‘Cannot return to the law of the jungle’
Wang appeared to take a swipe at Trump’s foreign policy ambitions.
“If China, like some traditional major powers, was keen on carving out spheres of influence in its neighbourhood, stoking bloc confrontation, or even shifting problems onto its neighbours, would Asia still be as stable as it is today?” Wang said. He did not name the US.
Read more: Trump ‘kills’ Iran’s Gulf de-escalation gesture, says FM
Beijing has grown more belligerent in its backyard over the past year, analysts say.
It has held massive war games around Taiwan, escalated a diplomatic spat with Japan over remarks by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi that a Chinese attack on the democratically governed island could trigger a military response from Tokyo, and repeatedly confronted Philippine ships in disputed areas of the South China Sea.
Still, Wang sought to project China’s economy as a stabilising force, in contrast to Trump’s military assertiveness.
“A hard fist is not the same as a hard reason,” he said. “The world cannot return to the law of the jungle. Resorting to force at every turn does not prove one’s might.”