Bottom-line mentality

Answering the question of the Global Times at the conference, Wang said that the abuse of litigation by the US against China for the COVID-19 outbreak was "groundless, has no factual basis and no international precedence and attempts to blackmail China over the epidemic are daydreaming and won't work." 

Wang said, "the attempt to file frivolous lawsuits is a shoddy one, as it has zero basis in fact, law or international precedence." 

Lü Xiang, a research fellow on US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, said policymakers at the White House and senior US politicians are getting increasingly panicky and nervous as they believe this is a most fragile moment for the US.

Once the US showed "many weaknesses" during its poor handling on the domestic outbreak, Lü said, US politicians would like to exaggerate and hype threats from outside and that was why they were "very aggressive to China even though China is helping and providing medical supplies to American people."

Today's China is not what it used to be a hundred years ago, nor is the world anything like the one from a century ago. If anybody thought they could use some ludicrous lawsuits to undermine China's sovereignty and dignity or to deprive the Chinese people of their hard-won gains, they'd be daydreaming and bring disgrace to themselves," Wang said.

Lü said the US was unable to afford an all-out confrontation with China as COVID-19 has already caused a great loss of its strength. The Trump administration would likely talk more and do less to harm China's interests, Lü guessed. 

"Huawei and Hong Kong could be the conflict points in the next stage, but China's retaliation would make the Trump administration suffer more economic pressures," he said.

Although Wang did not directly respond to the Global Times' question about concerns that Washington may confiscate Chinese assets in the US as compensation, some experts saw this as unfeasible: The US would risk losing its own financial status if it resorts to this tactic, they said.

Correct direction

Wang urged the world to embrace a brighter future after the pandemic: improving and reforming globalization, and upholding multilateralism. 

"The world will never be the same again, and China will never stop moving forward," he said.

Chinese experts noted this is an idea most members of the international community share and the opposite direction to the unilateralism of "America first" which the Trump administration is pushing.

In the post-pandemic international order, the US will be increasingly isolated and less influential, they said.

Li Haidong, a professor at the institute of international relations of the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing, told the Global Times that if the US continued its "unilateral, arrogant and selfish policies" to harm not only China but also its allies, its credibility would plummet.

Aside from the US, all Wang's other remarks at the press conference sent much more friendly and cooperative signals, such as China-Russia, China-Europe, China-Japan-South Korea and China-ASEAN relations.

In response to a question about whether China and Russia will join forces to challenge US predominance, Wang said the two countries have supported and defended each other against slander and attacks coming from certain countries.

"Together, China and Russia have forged an impregnable fortress against the 'political virus' and demonstrated the strength of bilateral strategic coordination," he said.

As to Europe, China and the European Union (EU) should not be "systemic rivals," but "comprehensive strategic partners," Wang noted.

The China-EU diplomatic agenda has been hit by the pandemic, but leaders from both sides "will keep in close contact in preparation for the 22nd China-EU leadership conference," he said.

The pandemic response efforts of China, Japan and South Korea have set an example for the world, and the three countries will try to sign the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement by the end of 2020 to speed up economic recovery for the region, Wang noted.   

Jin noted that China holds different attitudes toward the US and the rest of the world and he said, "We do have reason to believe that China will win more cooperation from other countries than the US as it is confident with its successful control over the COVID-19 outbreak and economic recovery." 

Li said the US is now unilaterally "decoupling" with China, but in the post-pandemic world, "it might find it is decoupling with the rest of the world."

A worker handles glass fiber reinforced plastic on Thursday in a factory in Lianyungang, East China's Jiangsu Province. Since the economy was restarted, the city's manufacturers are producing various glass fiber products, which are exported to countries and regions along the routes of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Photo: cnsphotos

Belt & Road recovery

The Chinese foreign minister said that "The impact of COVID-19 on Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) cooperation is temporary and limited. COVID-19 will only strengthen and re-energize Belt and Road cooperation and open up new possibilities."

Major projects like "China-Laos railways, Hungary-Serbia railways, dual-fired station in Cambodia, and the new administrative capital project of Egypt" are forging ahead steadily, Wang said.

Some temporarily suspended projects are restarting, he noted, and these projects would also be significant to any world economic recovery after the pandemic.

Wang Yiwei, director of the institute of international affairs at Renmin University of China in Beijing, said the COVID-19 global pandemic had struck a blow to global supply chains and might influence the international community's understanding of globalization. 

"Some Western countries, including the US and EU criticized the BRI, saying that connectivity would smooth the spreading of the virus," said Wang Yiwei, "but the fact is the BRI is helping with the economic development of countries along the route. 

"Some groundless slandering will not affect these countries' confidence in the initiative." 

There would be more public health projects emerging under the BRI and more work would be done to accomplish regional supply chains and structures, he said.