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NEW YORK — <\/span>A day after his boss met with President Donald Trump in Washington, China’s vice president unfurled the nation’s familiar list of global talking points, emphasizing development, issuing mild statements about the U.S. war with Iran, artificial intelligence and protectionism, and making no direct mention of Taiwan.<\/p>\n Han Zheng’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Saturday landed somewhat anticlimactically after Chinese President Xi Jinping met Trump for a state dinner and a visit to the National Archives. Most noteworthy about the address was the presence of Han himself: China has often used high-profile public events<\/a> to position its rising leaders on the global stage.<\/p>\n \u201cChina has created two miracles at home, namely fast economic roles and long-term social stability,\u201d Han said. <\/p>\n The closest he came to a pointed statement was when he mentioned protectionism. China and the United States have been engaged in a tariff spat<\/a> for more than a year, though that has ebbed as the Trump administration delayed implementations, court battles played out and Trump seemed to soften his approach to Xi. <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cBoth history and reality prove that countries can hardly achieve development without an open and cooperative international environment,” Han said. “Protectionism produces no winners.\u201d<\/p>\n The lack of direct mention of Taiwan, something that often comes up in China\u2019s U.N. speeches, was noteworthy, particularly given tensions<\/a> between Washington and Beijing about the self-governing island’s fate and defense. Beijing considers Taiwan a part of China.<\/p>\n Typically for China, Han put development at the top of the global agenda, saying much of the world order should be built around it to raise living standards everywhere. He also repeated a familiar refrain of the Chinese government: that development helps create peace.<\/p>\n China’s signature initiative of the past decade, known as \u201cBelt and Road,\u201d is an effort to foster development in nations across the world \u2014 and, in the process, increase China’s influence and soft power. Han said China has worked with three-quarters of the nations through Belt and Road projects. <\/p>\n China has long touted multilateralism as a cornerstone of a stable world, though it hasn’t always followed that path in its own relations. The nation’s constant refrain \u2014 stay out of our internal affairs<\/a> \u2014 reflects its history of trying to secure the edges of the country that are distant from Beijing. That’s a longstanding philosophy that dates to the construction of the Great Wall hundreds of years ago and continues today in the pressure points of Xinjiang and Tibet in its far west and Taiwan and Hong Kong off its east coast. <\/p>\n That refrain was reflected in Han’s speech Saturday. <\/p>\n \u201cMultilateralism is a choice made by humanity after going through scourges,” he said. \u201cWe should settle the differences and disputes through dialogue and consultation, and oppose unilateral military actions that violate the U.N. charter and circumvent Security Council authorization.\u201d<\/p>\n In terms of Iran, where the U.S. and Israel have been waging war since early this year, Han had this to say: \u201cChina holds that the sovereignty and security of countries in the Middle East, including the Gulf, should be respected.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe should safeguard the postwar international order,” he said, but \u2014 in a statement that could be considered contradictory \u2014 he said the world should \u201creject the Cold War mindset and block confrontation.\u201d<\/p>\n Han also spoke about empowering the Global South,<\/a> a term used for emerging and economically struggling nations \u2014 many of which sit below the equator. Some larger nations have positioned themselves in recent years as leaders of the Global South, including China and India. <\/p>\n Given Xi’s presence in the United States this week, many on-air pundits spent time ruminating about why he wasn’t speaking at the U.N. It’s not that unusual, though \u2014 particularly since Xi, in the grand scheme of things, had bigger fish to fry in Washington. <\/p>\n Wang Zichen, deputy secretary-general of the Beijing-based think tank Center for China and Globalization, said there has never been \u201ca convention\u201d requiring the Chinese president to attend the U.N. General Assembly. Xi\u2019s predecessors, including Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, attended major U.N. meetings only selectively, and Xi himself last addressed the body virtually during the pandemic in 2021.<\/p>\n