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Two Sessions 2020: China-US rivalry in ‘high-risk period’, Chinese defence minister says
- US has intensified its ‘suppression and containment’ of China since start of Covid-19 pandemic, top defence official and PLA general Wei Fenghe says
- ‘We must strengthen our fighting spirit, be daring to fight and be good at fighting, and use fighting to promote stability,’ he says
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The strategic confrontation between China and the United States has entered a high-risk period, China’s top defence official said in a rare statement directly naming an adversary.
Speaking during a panel discussion on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress (NPC) on Saturday, Defence Minister Wei Fenghe said that China needed to bolster its fighting spirit, while other military leaders said the country had to catch up with Western nations in its development of core technologies.
“The United States has intensified the suppression and containment of our side since the [coronavirus] outbreak, and the Sino-US strategic confrontation has entered a period of high risk,” Wei, who is also a general in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), said.
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“We must strengthen our fighting spirit, be daring to fight and be good at fighting, and use fighting to promote stability.”
Wei’s comments were made available to accredited journalists covering the NPC in Beijing. While it is relatively rare for PLA officers to name specific countries or regions, more have done so this year amid rising tensions between China and the US, and souring ties between Beijing and Taipei.
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