Beijing raises the tone. The United States and China are headed for an inevitable “confrontation and conflict” unless Washington changes course, Beijing’s new foreign minister Qin Gang warned on Tuesday.

The Chinese foreign minister’s tough remarks underscored deepening tensions between the world’s two biggest economies in the wake of China’s spy balloon and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Similar sharp comments were echoed a day earlier by leader of China, Xi Jinping, which spoke of US efforts to contain China and of deteriorating relations between the two countries.

Chin’s news conference, his first since taking office in December, took place in Beijing on the sidelines of the annual meeting of China’s legislature, where Xi is expected to complete the biggest government reshuffle in a decade.

In a broad rebuke of US policymakers, Chin – who until recently was China’s ambassador to the US – disputed President Joe Biden’s suggestions that the US was seeking competition with China, but not conflict.

“In reality, so-called competition from the US side is our total containment and repression, a zero-sum game,” he said, hinting that conflict may be inevitable unless Washington stops trying to contain Beijing.

“The US side is supposed to want to put ‘guardrails’ in Sino-US relations, not a confrontation,” Chin continued. “In reality, China wants China not to respond in words or actions when it is slandered or attacked. This is simply impossible.”

“Unless the US side steps on the brakes and continues down the wrong path, no ‘guardrail’ can stop the derailment and reversal into confrontation and conflict,” he emphasized.

The crisis in Ukraine seems to be driven by “invisible hand”which pushes the armed conflict to prolong and escalate, he also said.

This “invisible hand” seems to “is using the crisis in Ukraine to advance specific geopolitical agendas”Mr. Chin said in a speech on the sidelines of the annual session of the Chinese parliament, calling for peace negotiations between Moscow and Kiev to begin as soon as possible.

“Conflict, sanctions and pressure will not solve the problem (…) The process of peace negotiations must start as soon as possible and the security concerns of all sides must be respected,” he said.pointed out the head of Chinese diplomacy, partially repeating positions already expressed by China.

Mr Chin reiterated that the Chinese government has not supplied any of the warring parties with military equipment, amid increasingly vocal threats from the US that there would be unspecified “consequences” if it sent lethal weapons to Russia.

China “It is not part of this crisis and has not supplied any side of the armed conflict with equipment. So on what basis are accusations made, sanctions talked about and China threatened? This is absolutely unacceptable“, judged the Chinese Foreign Minister.