China will ‘play along to the end’ with U.S., its top diplomat says

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi attends the Munich Security Conference (MSC) in Munich, Germany on February 14, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday (February 14, 2025) that China will “play along to the end” if the U.S. is bent on suppressing the country even though Beijing does not wish to be in conflict with Washington.

Mr. Wang, speaking at the Munich Security Conference, said China would respond resolutely to unilateral “bullying” practices, but hopes the U.S. can work together with it in the same direction.

Earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump slapped an additional 10% tariff on all Chinese goods despite having what he had described as a “good” telephone call with Chinese leader Xi Jinping weeks earlier.

The levies spurred China to hit back with up to 15% in duties on some U.S. imports, reigniting fears of a full-blown trade war between the world’s largest economies.

In the weeks before Mr. Trump was sworn in, the Biden administration declared more curbs on advanced technology that can be sold to China, in further efforts to stop Chinese firms from developing high-tech chips that can be used by Chinese military applications.

Beijing said the curbs had been part of a long-running plan to contain the technological progress of China.

China has developed and grown by overcoming difficulties and obstacles, and will not be afraid, Mr. Wang said at the Munich conference, whose attendees included U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance.

Mr. Wang then cited several Chinese sayings, including one from the first chapter of the Chinese classic, the Book of Changes, as the I Ching is known: “The movement of Heaven is full of vigour. Thus, the gentleman (follows suit and) makes himself strong and untiring.”

“These lines are hard to translate, you can get DeepSeek to help,” Mr. Wang said with a smile.

DeepSeek is an artificial intelligence app developed by China despite U.S. chip curbs, an app that is threatening to challenge the dominance of U.S. generative AI chatbots including ChatGPT.