Beijing:
A leading Chinese diplomat on Friday condemned Washington’s “small circle” diplomacy, state media reported, in a phone contact with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as G7 leaders met for their very first in-particular person summit in almost two years.
Yang Jiechi, the Chinese Communist Party’s chief diplomat, told Blinken that “genuine multilateralism is not pseudo-multilateralism based on the interests of small circles”.
“The only genuine multilateralism is that founded on the principles of the charter of the United Nations and international law,” Yang told Blinken, in their very first one-on-one talks considering that acrimonious China-US discussions in Anchorage in March.
The contact came as the leaders of the G7 group — the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Germany, Italy, and Japan — met Friday in Cornwall, England, with the challenge posed by China leading of the agenda.
The US administration of Joe Biden has maintained a firm line against China, and hopes to rally allies to counter Beijing on trade, technologies and human rights — especially in the restive area of Xinjiang, exactly where Washington has accused China of genocide.
Yang on Friday hit back against these claims, urging the United States to “resolve its own grave human rights violations and not use so-called human rights issues as a pretext to arbitrarily interfere in the internal affairs of other countries”.
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