On Saturday, the foreign minister of China spoke to a group of global security policy leaders and stated that excluding China from trade in order to avoid dependence would be a significant error.

Wang Yi addressed the Munich Security Conference. The host country, Germany, aims to minimize its dependence on trade with a more assertive China and broaden its sources of critical goods through a strategy known as “de-risking.” This aligns with the stance of other major industrial nations in the G7, which has emphasized that it has no intention of damaging China or impeding its progress.

The strategy has been criticized by Beijing.

“According to Wang, an interpreter, it is now widely recognized that the lack of cooperation poses the greatest risk. Those who try to exclude China in an effort to minimize risk will be making a significant error in history.”

He stated that the global economy is comparable to an expansive ocean that cannot be divided into separate lakes. He also noted that the movement towards economic globalization cannot be undone and emphasized the importance of collaborating to ensure that globalization benefits everyone and is all-encompassing.

Wang reiterated China’s denial of claims of forced labor in the west region of Xinjiang. The country has been accused of implementing labor transfer programs in which Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities are compelled to work in factories as part of a larger effort to assimilate them and detain them in large numbers.

He expressed dissatisfaction with “false information from various sources” and claimed that the goal is “to hinder China’s progress.”