The US on Friday warned China not to interfere in Taiwan’s upcoming presidential and legislative elections, urging “responsible behavior on all sides.”
The lead-up to the Jan. 13 poll is being closely watched — including by policymakers in Beijing and Washington — as it could determine the future of Taiwan’s relations with an increasingly bellicose China.
“Our strong expectation and hope is that those elections be free of intimidation, or coercion, or interference from all sides,” US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.
Photo: Screengrab from the Brookings Institution’s YouTube channel
“The United States is not involved and will not be involved in these elections,” Burns said.
More broadly, Burns said that “China wishes to become the strongest power in the Indo-Pacific” region, referring, for example, to its recent activities in the South China Sea.
The US and China are “in a competitive relationship” when it comes to their militaries and economies, he said.
However, Burns also addressed the economic giants’ ability to agree, particularly in the wake of a meeting last month between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
The leaders agreed to restore military-to-military communications and tackle the fentanyl trade, a drug that causes tens of thousands of US overdose deaths each year.
The countries need to work together on issues such as climate change, narcotics, global health and food security, Burns said.
“No person in their right mind should want this relationship to end up in conflict or in war,” he said. “So we’re going to develop a relationship where we can compete, but, as the president [Biden] says, to compete responsibly, drive down the probability of a conflict and bring our people together in a balanced relationship is one way to do that.”
Burns called for enhancing people-to-people relations between the countries, adding that there were “15,000 American students six or seven years ago in China. Last year, we were down to 350.”
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were 354 direct flights per week between the two countries, compared with only 70 at present.
Additional reporting by AP
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