Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Sunday signaled Beijing’s ambition for a successful summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping later this month — regardless of ongoing U.S. and Israeli attacks on China’s ally Iran.
Wang praised “good interactions” between Trump and Xi that he said had created an “important strategic safeguard” for U.S.-China relations. And he teased the possibility of the leaders’ March 31-April 2 summit improving the often fractious ties between Beijing and Washington.
“This year is a ‘big year’ for China-U.S. relations,” Wang said at a press conference on the sidelines of the annual meeting of China’s parliament,” per a Chinese Foreign Ministry transcript. China wants 2026 to be “a landmark year of sound, steady and sustainable development of China-U.S. relations,” he added.
Wang’s comments suggest Beijing sees the upcoming summit as key to sustaining a U.S.-China trade truce following what Trump called an “amazing meeting” with Xi in South Korea in October. That encounter resulted in a cooling of a trade war between Washington and Beijing that raged through much of 2025. Trump agreed to reduce tariff levels on Chinese imports in exchange for China restarting purchases of U.S. agricultural products like soybeans and the elimination of Beijing’s restrictions on critical minerals exports.
Beijing appears to be prioritizing the success of the summit over its concerns about U.S. military operations targeting Chinese allies Venezuela and Iran.
Those moves have disrupted Chinese supplies of oil and gas from both countries. Beijing has issued ritual denunciations of the U.S. arrest of Venezuela’s leader in January and the ongoing U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran, but hasn’t offered any substantive support to either country. Wang sidestepped any direct criticism of the U.S. when asked about Iran and framed China’s concerns about the conflict in deliberately vague terms.
“This is a war that should not have happened — it is a war that does no one any good,” Wang said.
Wang instead implicitly referenced Beijing’s focus on the upcoming summit.
“The agenda of high-level exchanges is already on the table,” Wang said. “What the two sides need to do now is to make thorough preparations, accordingly, create a suitable environment, manage the risks that do exist, and remove unnecessary disruptions.
China’s foreign minister touts ‘big year’ in US-China ties
Source: Viral Showbiz Pinay
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