“China’s external development environment has undergone rapid changes. Uncertain and unpredictable factors have increased significantly,” Xi Jinping said.
“Western countries, led by the United States, have implemented a policy of containment, encirclement and repression against China, which has brought unprecedented challenges to our country’s development,” he said. he added.
The 69-year-old leader, who is about to get an unprecedented third presidential term in a few days, was speaking to members of an advisory committee during the annual parliamentary session.
Xi Jinping also said that the past five years have been marked by a new set of obstacles, which threaten to slow down China’s economic rise.
Strained relationship with the United States.
Sino-US relations went through a particularly tense period last month, aftera Chinese airship was shot down by the US militarybecause accused of spying on US military installations.
The case forced US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a visit to China, which would have helped to defuse sensitive issues such as the Chinese position on the war in Ukraine, competition in technology and the question of Taiwan.
China and the United States are engaged in a fierce battle for the manufacture of semiconductors, the Americans having lost their dominant position to the benefit of the Asian giant.
In the name of a supposed threat to its national security, the United States has multiplied in recent months the sanctions against Chinese chipmakers, now hindered from sourcing American technologies.
The visits of Western parliamentarians, particularly Americans, to Taiwan, an island whose sovereignty Beijing claims and intends to attach to mainland China, has also contributed to straining relations.
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