Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Responsibility for the problems with the increase in the public debt of individual countries does not lie with China, said the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China Zhao Lijian at a regular departmental press briefing. According to him, most of the debt of many countries is their growing debt to the United States and other developed countries, as well as loans issued to them by international financial institutions.

The diplomat stressed that China will step up measures to reduce the debt burden of countries experiencing economic difficulties. “Given the requests of a number of countries, Beijing has decided to free them from outstanding debts,” he added, recalling that China supports the initiative put forward by the G20 to freeze debt service payments by the end of the year for the world's poorest countries affected by the coronavirus. “We are ready to work together with other stakeholders to make efforts to reduce the negative impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the global economy,” Zhao Lijian said.

On 17 October, the head of the US Export-Import Bank, Kimberly Reed, published an article accusing the CCP of seeking to inflict a ruthless blow on the US economy in ways such as theft of US intellectual property, forced technology transfer, large-scale dumping and manipulation of the exchange rate. According to Kimberly Reed, the Chinese side has recently supported the financing of export projects in order to disrupt fair and free market competition. An article with such content was posted on Twitter by US Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment Keith Crutch.

Zhao Lijian called these statements baseless accusations and groundless insults. According to the diplomat, the American side interprets the concept of national security too broadly and abuses export restrictions. "Thus, Washington is violating WTO rules and causing serious damage to the multilateral trading system," Zhao Lijian said.