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China’s top envoy to the US said the top priority for both countries is to translate recent outcomes from meetings in Busan and Kuala Lumpur into concrete actions without “causing new disruptions”. Speaking via video link to the US-China Business Council’s annual conference in Shanghai, Xie Feng also reiterated Beijing’s four red lines, including the Taiwan issue, according to a transcript of his speech released by the Chinese embassy on Tuesday. Xie’s speech, delivered on Monday, came after Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump held talks last week on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in South Korea. “The pressing priority is to follow up on the consensus reached between the two presidents at their meeting and the joint arrangements reached during the economic and trade talks in Kuala Lumpur, so as to reassure both our countries and the world economy with concrete actions and outcomes,” Xie said. “It would be unacceptable to say one thing but do another, cause any new disruptions, make zero-sum calculations, let alone try to profit at the others’ expense,” he added. It was their first in-person meeting since Trump’s return to the White House in January, and Beijing and Washington reached a truce on thorny issues ranging from soybeans and rare earths to fentanyl. Late last month, before the summit, the two sides agreed to a preliminary framework deal after two days of talks in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. The negotiations, led by Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng and US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, came ahead of the November 10 expiration of a temporary tariff truce. In his speech, Xie also called on both sides to “respect each other’s core interests and major concerns” as “it is normal to have friction now and then”. “Taiwan, democracy and human rights, (the country’s) path and system, and development rights are China’s four red lines,” he said in a warning to Washington to “avoid crossing them and causing trouble”. Beijing regards Taiwan as a core interest and has insisted in official statements that it is “the first red line that cannot be crossed” in bilateral relations. In his final in-person meeting with then-president Joe Biden in November 2024, Xi stressed that the Taiwan issue “must not be challenged or crossed”. “Dialogue is better than confrontation, cooperation is better than a zero-sum game, and stability is better than volatility,” Xie said. “Be it tariff war or trade war, or industrial war and tech war, all will lead to nothing but a dead end.” The Xi-Trump summit “recalibrated the direction of bilateral relations at a crucial time once more”, Xie said, while noting that common interests between the two countries “far outweigh our differences”. “Turning our backs on each other is not an option. Trying to remodel the other is unrealistic. Any conflict or confrontation would have unbearable consequences for both sides,” he said. “When we see each other as a partner, there is no problem we cannot solve; but if we treat one another as a rival, problems will arise even when there are none at first. “We need to keep the big picture in mind and think long-term, so as to explore the right way for China and the US to get along in the new era,” Xie said.
