American and European efforts to keep China away from high-end Western technology have Chinese President Xi Jinping fuming, even as Beijing’s cyber threats to Europe irritate trans-Atlantic officials.

“Artificially creating technological barriers and cutting off industrial and supply chains will only lead to division and confrontation,” Xi told Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, per a state media account of the two leaders’ meeting Wednesday. “The Chinese people also have the legitimate right to development, and no force can stop China’s scientific and technological development and progress.”

Xi paired the remonstrance with an offer to expand “cooperation in artificial intelligence” with the Netherlands. The fraught overture came against the backdrop of a U.S.-led effort to deprive China of cutting-edge semiconductor microchips, an initiative that the Netherlands and Japan have buttressed by agreeing to restrict the sale of equipment that the communist regime could use to manufacture the advanced chips in China.

“It is hoped that the European side will be prudent in introducing restrictive economic and trade policies and utilizing trade remedies,” Chinese Premier Li Qiang told Rutte in a separate meeting Wednesday. “China is willing to work together with the European side to push forward the sustained, healthy, and stable development of China-EU relations.”

Rutte, who is regarded as the front-runner to replace NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg later this year, maintained a nonconfrontational tone in public.

“When it’s about our semiconductor sector and companies like [Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography], when we have to take [export restriction] measures, that they are never aimed at one country specifically,” he said after the meeting. “We always try to make sure the impact is limited.”

China’s rhetorical line has been belied in European capitals by a series of controversies with Beijing, most recently evidenced by the spate of government announcements that a Chinese Communist Party hacking group has targeted American and European politicians and other organizations. Finland joined that chorus Tuesday with the revelation that the hacking group, known as APT31, is believed to be responsible for hacking the Finnish Parliament’s information systems in 2020 and 2021.

“The criminal investigation has been demanding and time-consuming because it has involved challenging investigations into a complex criminal infrastructure,” Finnish detective chief inspector Aku Limnéll said Tuesday.

In parallel, American and British authorities unveiled indictments and sanctions aimed at the same hacking operation, on the grounds that Beijing’s hackers had targeted a wide range of political and security-related accounts, including British election systems.

“The U.K. will not tolerate malicious cyber activity targeting our democratic institutions,” British Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said Tuesday. “I hope this statement helps to build wider awareness of how politicians and those involved in our democratic processes around the world are being targeted by state-sponsored cyber operations.”

China countered that the United Kingdom’s “conclusions lack professionalism” and maintained that it is part of an American plot.

“Now along with the U.K., the U.S. is hyping up the so-called ‘Chinese cyberattacks’ and even launching groundless unilateral sanctions against China,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said Tuesday. “China firmly opposes this, we have made strong démarches to the U.S. and relevant parties and will take necessary measures to safeguard our lawful rights and interests.”

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Xi’s regime returned Wednesday to the task of urging foreign governments not to curtail economic relations with China.

“Asia must be vigilant not to become testing grounds for parallel systems,” Liu Jianchao, who leads the CCP’s international department, said at a conference in Singapore. “If so, the long-established industrial supply chains in the region could be disrupted and Asia can find it harder to achieve prosperity.”