Beijing: Chinese foreign minister, Qin Gang, on Tuesday singled out the US for searing criticism of its foreign policies, accusing it of creating military blocs in the Indo-Pacific region in an effort to “control China”, warned Washington against crossing the “red line” in Taiwan, and without directly naming the US, said “an invisible” hand was escalating the war in Ukraine for geopolitical gains.
Stoutly defending Beijing’s ties with Moscow, a combative Qin, said Sino-Russian ties so “not pose a threat to any country in the world, nor will it be interfered or sowed discord in by any third party”.
“The more unstable the world becomes, the more imperative it is for China and Russia to steadily advance their relations,” he said.
Qin reserved much of his diplomatic salvo for the US.
“The US ‘Indo-Pacific Strategy’ claims to safeguard regional security, but in fact it provokes confrontation and seeks to create an Asia-Pacific version of NATO,” Qin, who took over as foreign minister late last year, said in his first press conference on the sidelines of the ongoing Two Sessions, China’s annual parliament meetings.
China has been vocal in its criticism of the US’s Indo-Pacific strategy as well as the Quad grouping comprising the US, India, Japan and Australia besides often targeting the AUKUS, which is an Australia-UK-US alliance, saying that they were aimed at containing its rise.
“The US Indo-Pacific strategy while purportedly upholding freedom and openness to maintain security and prosperity in the region is an attempt to gang up to form exclusive blocs to provoke a confrontation by plotting an Asia-Pacific version of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) and to undermine regional integration through decoupling and supply chains,” Qin said.
Setting a hostile tone for bilateral ties with the US, Qin said “conflict and confrontation” were inevitable if Washington did not change its policies. “If the US does not hit the brakes, but continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailing, and there will surely be conflict and confrontation.”
Ties between the US and China have been fraught over a range of issues ranging from trade to human rights and transparency over the origins of the coronavirus, which triggered the Covid-19 pandemic, to the recent shooting down of a Chinese balloon by the US air force.
Ukraine war
Qin continued China’s stand of posing neutral in the ongoing Ukraine conflict, which Beijing has refused to term a Russian invasion of the east European country.
China, he said, is not the creator of the crisis, nor a party directly concerned.
Qin added that Beijing has not provided weapons to either side in the Ukraine war in the backdrop of US officials warning China of unspecified “consequences”, should it send arms to Russia. “What has China done to deserve being blamed, or even sanctioned and threatened? This is absolutely unacceptable,” Qin said.
Qin said that there seems to be “an invisible hand pushing for the protraction and escalation of the conflict and using the Ukraine crisis to serve (a) certain geopolitical agenda”.
“Stressing that conflict, sanctions and pressure will not solve the problem, Qin said what is needed is calmness, reason and dialogue,” Qin said, according to a report by the official news agency, Xinhua. The process of peace talks should begin as soon as possible, he said
Taiwan
“Mishandling of the Taiwan question will shake the very foundation of China-US relations,” he said.
“The Taiwan question is at the very core of China’s core interests, the bedrock of the political foundation of China-US relations, and the first red line that must not be crossed in China-US relations,” Qin said.
Dramatically brandishing a copy of the Chinese constitution, Qin said Taiwan is China’s internal matter and China reserves the option to take measures that it deems as necessary to achieve “reunification” with Taiwan.
Qin questioned Washington’s policies over Ukraine and Taiwan.
“Why does the US talk up respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity on the Ukraine issue, but does not respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity on the issue of Taiwan? Why does the US ask China not to provide weapons to Russia while (it) keeps selling arms to Taiwan?” Qin said.
Qin’s remarks on Tuesday come amid reports of a potential meeting between Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in April.
Tsai could meet McCarthy in California, rather than in Taiwan as the US Speaker had initially indicated, a report in the Financial Times newspaper said on Monday.
