US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday that China should not hold hostage talks on important global matters such as the climate crisis, after Beijing cut off contacts with Washington in retaliation for US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan earlier this week.
Blinken spoke in an online news conference with his Philippine counterpart in Manila after meeting newly elected President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and other top officials, as relations between Washington and Beijing plummeted to their worst level in years.
Pelosi’s trip to the self-governed island outraged China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary. China on Thursday launched military exercises off Taiwan’s coasts and on Friday cut off contacts with the US on vital issues, including military matters and crucial climate cooperation, as punishments against Pelosi’s visit.
“We should not hold hostage cooperation on matters of global concern because of differences between our two countries,” Blinken said. “Others are rightly expecting us to continue to work on issues that matter to the lives and livelihood of their people as well as our own.”
He cited cooperation on climate change as a key area where China shut down contact that “doesn't punish the United States — it punishes the world.”
“The world’s largest carbon emitter is now refusing to engage on combatting the climate crisis,” Blinken said, adding that China's firing of ballistic missiles that landed in waters surrounding Taiwan was a dangerous and destabilizing action.
“What happens to the Taiwan Strait affects the entire region. In many ways it affects the entire world because the Strait, like the South China Sea, is a critical waterway,” he said, noting that nearly half the global container fleet and nearly 90% of the world’s largest ships transit through the waterway.
China shut “military-to-military channels, which are vital for avoiding miscommunication and avoiding crisis, but also cooperation on transnational crimes and counter-narcotics, which help keep people in the United States, China and beyond, safe,” he said.
Despite China's actions, Blinken said he told his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Friday in Cambodia, where they attended an annual meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, that the US did not want to escalate the situation.
Source: AP
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