BEIJING, April 15. /TASS/. China calls on US authorities to drop attempts at spoiling Russian-Chinese relations amid the Ukrainian crisis and stop speaking about rivalry between China and the United States, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian said.
"Washington keeps on disseminating false information amid the crisis situation in Ukraine in a bid to denigrate China, drive a wedge in relations between China and Russia," he said. "The United States is obviously seeking to create contradictions and strains to use them in its own selfish purposes. Washington should revise its actions."
According to the Chinese diplomat, the United States is directly responsible for the hostilities in Ukraine. He also stressed that his country has never sought to position itself as a rival to the United States, since "the key task of the country’s national development is to ensure wellbeing of Chinese citizens."
"We are not interested in challenging anyone," Zhao Lijian said. "The United States has vilified China too many times. But lie is a lie all the same."
CIA chief William Burns said on Thursday that China’s leadership is the biggest challenge for the United States in the current century.