BEIJING, Nov. 3 (Portal) – The US has “no right” to interfere in China’s cooperation with Germany, China’s foreign ministry said on Thursday after Washington warned Beijing is buying a controlling stake in the Hamburg port terminal.
US interference is symptomatic of its practice of coercive diplomacy, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters at a daily briefing in Beijing.
“The pragmatic cooperation between China and Germany is the business of the two sovereign countries, the United States should not attack them without reason and has no right to interfere and interfere,” Zhao said on Thursday, a day before Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s appointment in Beijing on a one-day visit to meet President Xi Jinping.
Chinese shipping giant Cosco last year offered to take a 35 percent stake in one of logistics company HHLA’s (HHFGn.DE) three terminals in Germany’s largest port, but the German coalition was divided over the deal.
Last week, Germany’s cabinet approved a 24.9 percent stake by Cosco in what an Economy Ministry source called a “stopgap measure” to approve the deal but mitigate the impact.
The approved investment gives Cosco no say in management or strategic decisions.
Reporting by Eduardo Baptista, writing by Martin Quin Pollard; Edited by Raissa Kasolowsky and Kim Coghill
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