China's US ambassador warns about 'red lines' ahead of Trump, Xi meeting

Ahead of a summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump in Washington, China's ambassador to the United States, Xie Feng, issued a warning about "red lines" that cannot be crossed. Writing in the People's Daily, Xie stated that China has inviolable interests regarding "the Taiwan question, democracy and human rights, development paths and systems, and development rights." He emphasized that while cooperation benefits both nations, confrontation leads to suffering. Xie urged the US to cease "fabricating pretexts" like national security and forced labor to constrain China, and to maintain policy continuity and stability. A separate commentary in the same newspaper attributed recent difficulties in US-China relations to the US's "erroneous perceptions of China and its unwillingness to let go of the notion of 'strategic competition'."