Hormats: 'Puzzled' about Trump’s accusations against China

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04:41

The accusation of the US President Donald Trump hit the headlines, but the former US Under Secretary of State Robert Hormats is "puzzled" about where the accusation really comes from.

Trump accused China of meddling with the upcoming 2018 election during his speech given at the United Nations General Assembly. The set-up was to blame China if Republicans do poorly in the midterm vote, which will determine whether the party can keep control of the Congress.

"The advertisement is very clearly designated as having been developed and paid for by the China Daily, which is clearly labeled as an organ of [the] People Republic of China,” said Secretary Hormats during a sit-down interview with CGTN.

"So there's nothing disguised about it. And other people express their views in the American press, that's one of the benefits of the First Amendment," he said.

CGTN's Wang Guan interviews former US Under Secretary of State Robert Hormats. /CGTN Photo

Among the ongoing point of conflicts, the trade tension between the two countries continues to escalate with the United States imposing a 10 percent tariff later this month on 200 billion US dollars worth of Chinese goods earlier this month.

In response to many have considered China as a strong competitor to the US, Secretary Hormats said: "We have to understand our history."

"The fact that China's rise is occurring, and it is going to continue to rise as a technology power and of [a] variety of reasons: the number of patents issued in China is growing; the number of scientists working on artificial intelligence," said Hormats.

Been to China over a hundred times working under Obama's administration, Hormats agrees the US should not end the engagement policy with China.

"I think the answer and my judgment from a historical point of view is that the US and China need to remain and engage with one another. It is hard for me to see any real progress in the major global issues facing our countries and the world in the 21st Century without engagement," he said.

As China is taking on leading and shaping a multilateral world, Hormats pointed out the country has played a "constructive role."

"Making clear that it has its own view, it has its own sense of direction as to where they should go, but they are not alien to or confrontational with other institutions," he added.

(CGTN's Jiang Shaoyi also contributed to the report.)