Editorial says two countries should strive to avoid conflict in first statement since Donald Trumps election win
A military conflict between the US and China would spell disaster for the world, the Communist partys official mouthpiece has warned, in its first pronouncement on ties between the worlds two largest economies since Donald Trump moved into the White House.
Were the United States and China to wage war on one another, the whole world would divide itself, the Peoples Daily newspaper argued in a commentary, paraphrasing Henry Kissinger, the veteran US diplomat whose secret mission to China led to the historic rapprochement between Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong in 1972.
Fears of a potentially calamitous trade war, or even a military clash between the two nuclear powers, have been building since Trumps shock election win last November.
Trump repeatedly criticised China on the campaign trail and has continued to ruffle Chinese feathers since his unexpected victory, using television interviews and Twitter to challenge Beijing on issues including trade, Taiwan and the South China Sea.
Steve Bannon, Trumps influential chief strategist, was last week reported to have warned last year that war between the US and China in the resource-rich waterway was inevitable.
Meanwhile, in a likely indication of the frictions between Washington and Beijing, Trump has yet to speak to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, despite having held conversations with at least 18 world leaders since his inauguration.
Beijings public reaction to Trumps rise has so far been cautious, although state-run English-language newspapers have accused him of playing with fire by questioning longstanding US policy on Taiwan and one nationalist tabloid has warned of large-scale war.
Last month, the Chinas foreign ministry urged the US presidents team to speak and act cautiously after the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, vowed the US would foil Chinese efforts to take over the South China Sea.
In a diplomatically worded editorial published on page three of the Peoples Daily domestic edition on Monday, the voice of the Communist party said both countries should strive to avoid confrontation, conflict, misunderstandings and miscalculations.
Differences of opinion were inevitable due to the historical, cultural, economic and social differences between the US and China, the article said, but wise men should seek common ground. The article was printed under the byline Zhong Sheng, a homonym for Voice of China.
The broadsheet noted that both countries leaders were waging high-profile campaigns to improve the lives of their citizens: Xis great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and Trumps battle to make America great again.