Beijing berates US for ‘trying to include Taiwan in strategy to contain China’

Name: No change to US’ one-China stand on Taiwan, Blinken tells Wang Yi on G20 sidelines in Rome
Uploaded: 2022-02-22T11:05:13.000Z
Duration: 1 min 7 s
Description: No change to US’ one-China stand on Taiwan, Blinken tells Wang Yi on G20 sidelines in Rome

Containment is the wrong signal to send if relations are to recover, Foreign Minister Wang Yi tells US’ Antony Blinken during telephone talks

Policies have contradicted what Joe Biden promised Xi Jinping during virtual summit, Wang says

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China’s Wang Yi, pictured meeting Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Rome in October, has accused the US of not keeping its word. Photo: AP

Teddy Ng

Published: 7:05pm, 22 Feb 2022Updated: 7:06pm, 22 Feb 2022

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi accused the United States of trying to contain China rather than improve relations, and said it was using Taiwan to do so, as he held talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The remarks by Wang during a telephone call with Blinken on Tuesday offered the latest signal that Beijing wants Washington to change its policies towards China before seeking further cooperation.

The situation involving Ukraine and Russia was high on the agenda, with Blinken emphasising the need to preserve its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and Wang saying all parties should exercise caution and resolve the crisis through dialogue.

The Chinese foreign ministry’s statement also said Blinken congratulated Beijing on its hosting of the Winter Olympics – despite Washington staging a diplomatic boycott of the event. But the US statement about the phone call made no mention of the Games.

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No change to US’ one-China stand on Taiwan, Blinken tells Wang Yi on G20 sidelines in Rome

Beijing’s statement put greater emphasis, however, on the tensions facing China and the US. It described the US’ recently unveiled new Indo-Pacific strategy as an attempt to contain China.

“The new Indo-Pacific strategy laid out by the US recently publicly listed China as the top regional challenge, and attempted to include Taiwan in its regional strategy to contain China,” Wang told Blinken, according to the foreign ministry’s statement. “This is obviously sending a wrong signal of containment of China.”

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