China Rejects U.S.-U.K. Espionage Claims

On Wednesday in London, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director

Christopher Wray

made a rare joint appearance with his British counterpart, MI5 Director-General

Ken McCallum,

to warn business leaders Chinese authorities are “set on using every tool at their disposal” to steal technology.

The dueling statements come ahead of a planned meeting this week in Bali, Indonesia, between U.S. Secretary of State

Antony Blinken

and his Chinese counterpart, Foreign Minister

Wang Yi,

which political analysts say is in part designed to arrange a call between President Biden and Chinese President

Xi Jinping.

The two leaders most recently spoke in late March, shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a source of sharp disagreement between Washington and Beijing. Russian Foreign Minister

Sergei Lavrov

met with Mr. Wang on Thursday in Bali, the site of a Group of 20 meeting.

The conversation between Messrs. Blinken and Wang is likely to touch on Taiwan, the democratically run island China claims that is also perhaps the biggest potential flashpoint between the nations. The Biden administration has said it aims to erect so-called guardrails in the U.S. relationship with Beijing to prevent the chance for a clash between the adversaries.

Mr. Zhao told reporters on Thursday that “the guardrails already exist,” in the form of past Sino-U.S. agreements relating to Taiwan. “The two countries must make the relationship work and not mess it up,” Mr. Zhao said.

The Chinese comments on Thursday illustrate an increasingly familiar pattern in which U.S. allegations about Chinese behavior spark an angry response from Beijing that includes counter-allegations, sometimes spelled out in lengthy reports that argue the U.S. in particular is a global threat.

For instance, U.S. officials have said China’s treatment of mostly Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region amounts to a form of genocide, while China says the claims are “malicious lies,” and that in fact American government is a serial violator of human rights for treatment of its minorities, including Native Americans and Black people.

Similarly, in response to U.S. calls for a detailed investigation of the possible origins of the Covid-19 pandemic in central China, Beijing has requested that the World Health Organization probe a laboratory in Maryland’s Fort Detrick where Beijing says the disease may have originated.

Beijing’s messages are typically delivered by one of a handful of officials at the Foreign Ministry, including Mr. Zhao, who have been dubbed Wolf Warrior diplomats for their full-throated pushbacks. The nickname references a popular Chinese film series that depicts a military action hero who battles American-led mercenaries.

China also responded Thursday to a separate notice from U.S. counterintelligence officials this week warning of alleged efforts by China to influence U.S. state, local, tribal and business leaders. Mr. Zhao defended “subnational exchange and cooperation” as an important foundation of U.S.-China relations. He called on the U.S. to “stop disrupting and undermining subnational and people-to-people exchange.”

The Blinken-Wang meeting follows a China policy speech the secretary of state delivered in May in which he described Beijing as “the most serious long-term challenge to the international order.” Last month, the Foreign Ministry published an English-language report more than 25,000 words long titled “Falsehoods in U.S. Perceptions of China” that it said included facts and figures to “how deceptive, hypocritical and dangerous” U.S. policy on China has become.

Write to James T. Areddy at [email protected]

On Wednesday in London, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director

Christopher Wray

made a rare joint appearance with his British counterpart, MI5 Director-General

Ken McCallum,

to warn business leaders Chinese authorities are “set on using every tool at their disposal” to steal technology.

The dueling statements come ahead of a planned meeting this week in Bali, Indonesia, between U.S. Secretary of State

Antony Blinken

and his Chinese counterpart, Foreign Minister

Wang Yi,

which political analysts say is in part designed to arrange a call between President Biden and Chinese President

Xi Jinping.

The two leaders most recently spoke in late March, shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a source of sharp disagreement between Washington and Beijing. Russian Foreign Minister

Sergei Lavrov

met with Mr. Wang on Thursday in Bali, the site of a Group of 20 meeting.

The conversation between Messrs. Blinken and Wang is likely to touch on Taiwan, the democratically run island China claims that is also perhaps the biggest potential flashpoint between the nations. The Biden administration has said it aims to erect so-called guardrails in the U.S. relationship with Beijing to prevent the chance for a clash between the adversaries.

Mr. Zhao told reporters on Thursday that “the guardrails already exist,” in the form of past Sino-U.S. agreements relating to Taiwan. “The two countries must make the relationship work and not mess it up,” Mr. Zhao said.

The Chinese comments on Thursday illustrate an increasingly familiar pattern in which U.S. allegations about Chinese behavior spark an angry response from Beijing that includes counter-allegations, sometimes spelled out in lengthy reports that argue the U.S. in particular is a global threat.

For instance, U.S. officials have said China’s treatment of mostly Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region amounts to a form of genocide, while China says the claims are “malicious lies,” and that in fact American government is a serial violator of human rights for treatment of its minorities, including Native Americans and Black people.

Similarly, in response to U.S. calls for a detailed investigation of the possible origins of the Covid-19 pandemic in central China, Beijing has requested that the World Health Organization probe a laboratory in Maryland’s Fort Detrick where Beijing says the disease may have originated.

Beijing’s messages are typically delivered by one of a handful of officials at the Foreign Ministry, including Mr. Zhao, who have been dubbed Wolf Warrior diplomats for their full-throated pushbacks. The nickname references a popular Chinese film series that depicts a military action hero who battles American-led mercenaries.

China also responded Thursday to a separate notice from U.S. counterintelligence officials this week warning of alleged efforts by China to influence U.S. state, local, tribal and business leaders. Mr. Zhao defended “subnational exchange and cooperation” as an important foundation of U.S.-China relations. He called on the U.S. to “stop disrupting and undermining subnational and people-to-people exchange.”

The Blinken-Wang meeting follows a China policy speech the secretary of state delivered in May in which he described Beijing as “the most serious long-term challenge to the international order.” Last month, the Foreign Ministry published an English-language report more than 25,000 words long titled “Falsehoods in U.S. Perceptions of China” that it said included facts and figures to “how deceptive, hypocritical and dangerous” U.S. policy on China has become.

Write to James T. Areddy at [email protected]