After meeting face-to-face with Yang Jiechi in Anchorage and Zurich last year, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan should have known that the top Chinese diplomat's clarification of China's stance on matters of principle would be rock solid.
The briefing the Chinese side provided on the meeting indicates that for China, it was an opportunity to implement the consensus the presidents of the two countries reached in their video meeting in November last year in which they discussed the complex nature of Sino-US relations and the importance of managing them responsibly, as well as an occasion for the two sides to compare notes on international and regional issues of common concern.
In other words, the Chinese side regarded the meeting as a chance to advance Sino-US relations on the basis of mutual respect and an equal footing. However, the US was taking it as an opportunity to dictate to China from "a position of strength".
But by talking tough in a media interview one day before their third meeting in Rome on Monday－in which he warned Beijing not to help Moscow evade the punishment of US-led sanctions, alleging that "there absolutely will be consequences" for China if it does－Sullivan only served to expose how eager the US administration is to coerce China by threatening to make it another target of its long-arm jurisdiction.
That of course was never going to fly. China will never succumb to pressures or threats or compromise its stance on issues concerning its core interests, and international fairness and justice.
China has never targeted a third party in developing relations with other countries, including Russia and Ukraine, and the US administration is not in a position to lecture China on how to handle its relations with the US, never mind other countries.
That the US seems to be ready to hijack Sino-US relations with the Ukraine crisis as part of a pressure campaign it is trying to wage against China is another grave misjudgment by Washington. While the US always puts its narrow interests first－and all other parties, including its European allies, can be sacrificed for them－China always tries to bear the bigger picture in mind, as it believes that only when all parties' interests are protected and respected can each party's interests best be served.
It is to be hoped that the Rome meeting will help awaken US strategists to the fact that China, as an important stabilizer of the world economy and global situation, should be viewed as a reliable partner of the US rather than a rival.
What a country does, be it right or wrong, is recorded by history. It is also to be hoped therefore that the meeting in Rome will prove to be part of an entry on the right side of the ledger for the US.