US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and UK Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Cameron on Thursday reaffirmed their commitment to ensuring peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.
The US and the UK are aligned on key challenges they face in the Indo-Pacific region, including “ensuring peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” Blinken told a news conference after he met with Cameron in Washington.
Blinken said that there is a joint US-UK military facility that “plays a vital role in the Indo-Pacific region” and beyond, enabling the two sides to help safeguard regional stability, respond rapidly to crises and “counter some of the most challenging threats that we face.”
Photo: AFP
The two countries are “engaging China where we can” to address global challenges such as safety issues related to artificial intelligence while “standing up to the PRC [People’s Republic of China] for its nonmarket practices,” he said.
Countering “Chinese cyberattacks and other hostile acts” are crucial for the UK and the US, Cameron said, while calling for closer cooperation between allies to deal with Beijing.
In related news, Cameron told the Aspen Security Forum in Washington that China must not pursue unification with Taiwan by force, violence or coercion.
Asked whether “China’s real goal is to take Taiwan without firing a shot” as it sought to do in Hong Kong, Cameron said that was “the China goal that has always been there.”
While China believes in unification with Taiwan, the “one China” policy shared by the UK and the US insists that “this cannot happen in a way that involves force or violence or coercion,” he said.
Since he left office as British prime minister in 2016, China has changed and become “so much more hostile,” Cameron said, citing examples such as its treatment of Uighurs, its tightened grip over Hong Kong and “wolf warrior” diplomacy.
“We need to harden our systems and be very clear-eyed” to deal with this “different China,” he said.
The UK not only has to protect itself and its systems against cybercrime and other threats posed by China, but also “align better with our allies,” he said.
“It’s much easier to stand up to this sort of things if we stick together,” he added.
Separately, European Council officials at the EU-China summit in Beijing on Thursday voiced concern over heightened tensions in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, and expressed opposition to any unilateral attempt to change the “status quo.”
European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) for the first face-to-face meeting between the two sides in more than four years, followed by an exchange with Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強).
“The EU reaffirmed its consistent one China policy and expressed concerns about increased tensions in the Taiwan Strait,” the European Council said in a press release after the meetings.
Regional and global prosperity and security are threatened by increased instability in the East and South China seas, the press release said.
The EU opposes any unilateral attempts to change the “status quo” by force or coercion, calling for disputes to be resolved “through peaceful means in accordance with international law,” in particular the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, it said.
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