US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday blasted Beijing over its support of Russia after emerging from more than five hours of talks with Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅).
During a meeting on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in Indonesia, Blinken said he told Wang that China was not neutral on Russia’s war in Ukraine because there is no such thing as being neutral when there is a clear aggressor.
He cited Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) June 15 telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin as evidence of Beijing’s ongoing support.
Photo: REUTERS
Blinken said that G20 countries had urged Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov to lift a blockade on grain from Ukraine to ease food shortages around the world.
Blinken said he also conveyed to Wang that now was the time for China to call on Russia to end its blockade of Ukrainian ports and allow ships to export grain.
“Now what you hear from Beijing is that it claims to be neutral,” Blinken said. “I would start with the proposition that it’s pretty hard to be neutral when it comes to this aggression. There’s a clear aggressor. There’s a clear victim.”
China’s support for Russia was evident at the UN and in Chinese state media’s amplification of Russian propaganda, he said.
Blinken said he and Wang “addressed areas of disagreement, and ways to manage and reduce risks” while bringing up contentious issues such as tensions in the Taiwan Strait, Hong Kong’s democracy and allegations of forced labor in Xinjiang.
Blinken also pushed back against the idea that Wang’s two-week trip through the region suggested that China was more committed to engagement with Southeast Asia.
“What we’re about is not asking countries to choose, but giving them a choice when it comes to things like investment in infrastructure,” he said, adding that the US wanted to engage in a “race to the top,” not the bottom.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
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