China rejects US Democratic report as confrontational, false

By Saadet Gokce

ISTANBUL (AA) – China on Friday rejected a report by US Democratic Party senators accusing Washington of losing global influence to Beijing, calling it confrontational and based on false narratives.

"The report is filled with Cold War thinking and peddles major country confrontation and the false narrative of a China threat in order to target and suppress China," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a news conference in Beijing.

Lin said Beijing “firmly opposes” the report and emphasized that China has “no intention and will not compete with any other country over influence.”

“We have no intention to replace or challenge others,” he added.

The report, published Monday by Democratic senators on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, accuses the administration of US President Donald Trump of ceding diplomatic ground to China by cutting international aid programs and broadcasting services, according to the New York Times.

In response, Lin urged Washington to view “China and China-US relations in an objective and rational way,” stressing that Beijing “never engages in malicious competition or major country confrontation.”

- Beijing denies economic coercion over global port sales

Lin also addressed separate allegations that China was interfering in international port sales.

He said China “firmly opposes using economic coercion, intimidation and bullying to violate and undermine other countries’ legitimate rights and interests,” referring to a Wall Street Journal report that accused Beijing of blocking port sales to Western buyers.

The paper reported Thursday that Chinese authorities had threatened to veto the sale of dozens of seaports to Western investors unless China’s largest shipping company, Cosco, received a stake in the deals.

The company at the center of the report, CK Hutchison Holdings, owns two ports in the Panama Canal and over 40 others worldwide. Lin said the reviews would be carried out “in accordance with law.”