China has taken a sudden turn towards ‘gross aggression’ against its neighbors and in the Indo-Pacific
Washington:
China has taken a sudden turn towards “crass aggression” against its neighbors, including India, and in the Indo-Pacific, a senior administration official said after the conclusion of the ministerial quadrimester in Tokyo, during which the leaders pledged to coordinate their efforts for the stability of the strategically vital region.
Foreign ministers from the Indo-Pacific countries known as the Quad Group – the United States, Japan, India and Australia – met in Tokyo on Tuesday in what was their first face-to-face discussion since the start of the pandemic of coronavirus. The meeting took place against the backdrop of China’s aggressive military behavior in the Indo-Pacific, the South China Sea and along the Line of Effective Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.
Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne affirmed the strengthening of a free, open and international order based on rules.
China’s sudden aggression has become a matter of concern, a senior State Department official told reporters traveling with Mike Pompeo.
This is the concern. I mean, if you look at the conflict in the Himalayas between China and India, something that has in the past been handled by unwritten or unwritten rules to keep these things from getting out of hand, and then you look what happened here recently. , where you actually have people fighting to the death, the official said.
If you look at the only thing driving all of this, it’s a sudden shift towards crass aggression by the Chinese government throughout its periphery. I mean, you take it all around the Indo-Pacific and its western borders; you see things you’ve never seen before, and these respond to that, the official said.
India, China stranded in nearly five-month border standoff in eastern Ladakh
China is engaged in very controversial territorial disputes in the South and East Seas of China. Beijing has also made substantial progress in the militarization of its man-made islands in recent years.
Beijing claims sovereignty over the entire South China Sea. But Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan have counterclaims. In the East China Sea, China has territorial disputes with Japan.
The South China Sea and the East China Sea are said to be rich in minerals, oil, and other natural resources. They are also vital for world trade. While the United States does not claim the disputed waters, it has challenged China’s growing territorial claims in the South China Sea by deploying warships and fighter jets to assert freedom of navigation and patrols of flight over this strategically vital region.
Another US official said Chinese aggression was certainly a big part of it.
But it is also about the different models that we defend, democratic countries and an authoritarian model, and which will have the most success in the long term. We obviously believe ours is the one to follow to ensure that countries can better cope with the issues they face and the common challenges we face, the official said.
In Beijing, there seems to be a race to achieve some goals, the official said.
They talk about their centenary 2021 goal, their 2035 goal and their 2049 goal. They are stepping up. There was also unfortunately this denigration of nationalism inside the People’s Republic of China by the government, which then forced it to do things it might otherwise have withdrawn from, the official said.
A third official said the problem also needs to be properly defined.
This is not a US-Chinese dispute. It is about the free world against Chinese authoritarianism. The secretary (Pompeo) talks about it frequently, and that’s how he framed his discussions, and there was a lot of agreement around this table, he said.
As a growing power, they need to understand that there are things that great powers do. They participate in arms negotiations when they have a nuclear capability with vectors.
These are all things that we talked about that they are talking about, again, from the United States to China, the official said.
Everyone is saying that if you are going to have these capabilities and if you are going to have this WTO economic power, you should use it in a way that is acceptable to everyone and not exclusively to your advantage as part of a system. global, said the second official.
The Quad Ministerial Conference lasted about three hours in Tokyo, during which leaders discussed topics of mutual interest and concern.
It’s impossible to avoid the fact that it’s China and its actions in the region that make the Quad count and work this time around, the official said.
When you think of Quads, you think of safety. But as the secretary said yesterday, security takes many forms: economic security, protection of intellectual property rights. I mean, anything we do, to include traditional security, is part of it all, the first official said.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
