During his visit to China this week, John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, pressed the hope that the two powers could work together on the urgent problem of global warming despite their intensifying rivalry on other fronts.

But Chinese officials made clear that even as they were willing to restart long-stalled climate talks with the US, the two countries’ tense overall relationship could constrain cooperation. And China’s leader, Xi Jinping, asserted that his government would pursue its goals to phase out carbon dioxide pollution at its own pace and in its own way.

Xi did not meet Kerry during the envoy’s four-day visit, but he reiterated China’s position in a speech to environmental officials in Beijing. China remained “unwaveringly” committed to reaching its peak in carbon emissions before 2030 and becoming carbon neutral by 2060, he told them this week, according to the official People’s Daily on Wednesday.

“But,” Xi added, “the pathway and means for reaching this goal, and the tempo and intensity, should be and must be determined by ourselves, and never under the sway of others.”

It was a remark that illustrated how even in global warming — where international negotiations can succeed or fail depending on whether China and the US get along — Beijing views Kerry’s entreaties for a kind of limited climate truce with some wariness. It also underscored the resistance that Kerry faces in urging China to peak its climate pollution as early as possible before 2030.

Kerry is the latest of several Biden administration officials to travel to Beijing in an effort to steady relations after months of rancour between China and the US sent ties to their lowest point in decades.

New York Times News Service