China’s ambassador to the US warned that Beijing has four non-negotiable red lines ahead of this week’s Washington summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump. Writing in the Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, Ambassador Xie Feng said China’s sovereignty, security and development interests must not be violated, identifying Taiwan, democracy and human rights, development paths and systems, and development rights as issues that cannot be challenged. Xie urged the US to stop using national security, economic imbalances and forced labour as what he called fabricated pretexts to constrain China, saying cooperation benefits both countries while confrontation harms both. He described top-level diplomacy as the steady hand of China-US relations and said differences should not be feared. China claims democratically governed Taiwan despite objections from Taipei, while the US is Taiwan’s most important arms supplier and international backer despite lacking formal ties. A separate People’s Daily commentary blamed recurring bilateral difficulties on what it called erroneous US perceptions of China and Washington’s continued focus on strategic competition. Published under the pen name Zhong Sheng, meaning Voice of China, the commentary urged both sides to preserve momentum achieved at great cost and called on the US to maintain policy continuity, honor commitments and add certainty to bilateral relations.