Stop playing the Taiwan card, China tells US ahead of landmark White House speech
- Chinese foreign ministry says relations are at a crossroads and now is the time to avoid confrontation
- Blinken tests positive for Covid-19, delaying policy statement on Beijing
State Department spokesman Ned Price said the address would be rescheduled to “some point in the not-too-distant future”.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian declined to comment on the planned speech but wished Blinken a speedy recovery.
“At present, China-US relations are at an important crossroads,” he said on Thursday.
“We hope that the US side will implement President Joe Biden’s positive remarks and abandon the outdated zero-sum thinking of the Cold War.”
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Zhao repeated Beijing’s demand that Washington stick to Biden’s commitments about not seeking a new cold war, not seeking to change China’s system, not targeting China with its alliance system and not supporting “Taiwan independence”.
“The US side should meet China halfway … strengthen communication, manage differences, focus on cooperation, and push China-US relations back to the right track of healthy and stable development at an early date,” he said.
“Both history and reality show that China and the US will benefit from cooperation and lose from confrontation.”
The Biden administration has been under pressure over the absence of an official strategy to tackle China, deemed as Washington’s top national security threat.
Washington has sought to reassure its allies and critics at home that despite the Ukraine war, the US will remain committed to its alliance-based, China-focused Indo-Pacific strategy.
Blinken’s speech is expected to take a tough line on China amid bipartisan consensus and the hardening of American views on China.
Relations between Beijing and Washington have taken another blow over China’s ambivalence on the Ukraine war, on top of a whole range of hot-button issues including Taiwan, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and the South China Sea.
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Meanwhile, Zhao also lashed out at a reported meeting between White House Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell and British officials in March, where conflict contingency plans for Taiwan were discussed for the first time.
“At present, the situation in the Taiwan Strait is facing a new round of tension. The root cause is that the Taiwan authorities rely on the United States to seek ‘independence’, and some people in the United States intend to ‘use Taiwan to control China’,” he said.
“For some time now, the United States has been playing the Taiwan card more and more, working with certain countries to hype Taiwan-related issues in an attempt to promote the internationalisation of the Taiwan issue.
“These actions endanger the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait, and go further and further down a very dangerous road.”
