should give up its “wishful thinking” of changing China, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, warning that some in America were pushing relations to a “new Cold War.”.

to change China,” Wang said Sunday during his annual news briefing on the sidelines of National People’s Congress meetings in Beijing.

The world’s two biggest economies have clashed on a range of issues from trade to human rights, with Beijing’s latest move to tighten its grip on Hong Kong setting up another showdown between U.S.

relations, attempting to push the ties to the brink of so-called ‘new Cold War,’” Wang said.

“not to challenge China’s red line” on Taiwan, after Secretary of State Michael Pompeo broke with tradition last week and congratulated the island’s President Tsai Ing-wen on her second-term inauguration.

“Reunification between the two sides of the Strait is an inevitable trend of history, no one and no force can stop it,” Wang said.

“We have seen some positive steps taken by the DPRK in the last few years towards de-escalation and denuclearization,” Wang said.

Tensions spiked last week after China announced the NPC would write sweeping legislation into Hong Kong law to criminalize the harshest criticism of China and the ruling party.

The move drew swift condemnation from pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, who defied virus-related social-distancing measures and rallied in the city center even as Wang spoke.

Wang on Sunday repeated China’s stance that Hong Kong affairs were an internal matter and said the principle of non-interference must be upheld by all countries.

He also argued that the coronavirus pandemic showed how the world was a “global village” and needed to work together, while repeatedly rejecting foreign criticism of China’s internal affairs.

Xi said Saturday he won’t let China return to its days as a planned economy, pushing back against U.S