Taiwan: Beijing hits out at Antony Blinken’s ‘irresponsible and absurd’ comments

Name: Shanghai officials visit Taipei as local government exchanges resume after 3-year hiatus
Uploaded: 2023-02-28T14:31:19.000Z
Duration: 1 min 47 s
Description: Shanghai officials visit Taipei as local government exchanges resume after 3-year hiatus

The US Secretary of State said the island’s fate is not just an ‘internal matter’ for China but is a matter that concerns the whole world

Foreign ministry in Beijing warns Washington it will ‘pay a heavy price’ if it follows the ‘wrong path’

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Antony Blinken said Taiwan was a matter that concerend the whole world. Photo: AP

Liu Zhen

Published: 10:31pm, 28 Feb 2023Updated: 12:11am, 1 Mar 2023

Beijing on Tuesday slammed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for his recent comments on Taiwan, calling them “totally irresponsible and absurd”.

Speaking at a regular press briefing in Beijing, foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning questioned Blinken’s intentions and stressed that the issue of Taiwan is an untouchable red line in US-China relations.

In an interview with The Atlantic to mark the first anniversary of the Ukraine-Russia war, Blinken was asked if the war has hastened Beijing to take military action against Taiwan.

He replied: “One of the reasons that the world is so concerned about a crisis across the Taiwan Strait is because this is not an internal matter, as China would have it, based on its sovereignty. It’s a matter of concern to quite literally the entire world.”

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Shanghai officials visit Taipei as local government exchanges resume after 3-year hiatus

He went on to say: “Fifty per cent of the commercial container traffic goes through [the Taiwan] strait every day. A big majority of the semiconductors that the world needs for everything from our smartphones, our dishwashers, to our automobiles are produced on Taiwan.