China Says It Will ‘Resolutely Counter’ U.S. Tariff Pressure

China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, cast his country as a bulwark for peace and stability in a world thrown into chaos by the Trump administration. He warned of a return to the law of the jungle if more countries act like the United States in pursuing its own interests above all else.

As the Trump administration upends global trade relations and threatens to abandon alliances, China is trying to burnish its image at home and abroad and take swipes at Western dominance. “We will provide certainty to this uncertain world,” Mr. Wang told reporters in Beijing on Friday.

Yet Mr. Wang’s depiction of China’s role conveniently downplayed the frictions it, too, has caused. Chinese industrial policy has flooded the world with Chinese goods and fueled massive trade imbalances. China’s air force menaces the self-governed island of Taiwan on a daily basis. Its navy has held live-fire exercises near Australia and Vietnam.

On Friday, however, China pointed the finger at the United States, which has withdrawn from international groups and pacts like the World Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement. The Trump administration has also unsettled its allies by threatening to take Greenland and apparently taking Russia’s side in its war on Ukraine.

“Great powers should shoulder their international obligations and fulfill their role as great powers,” Mr. Wang said. “They should not be profit-oriented, let alone bullying.”

He made no mention of China’s own muscle flexing, which has fueled tensions in the region. Chinese Coast Guard ships, for instance, enforce Beijing’s disputed claims to wide swaths of the South China Sea by sometimes ramming and swiping Philippine vessels. (Mr. Wang described China’s activity in the region as defensive and portrayed the Philippines as a Western pawn.)