-Warns US to stop unprovoked attacks, accusations
DM Monitoring
BEIJING: China said that the United States should stop its unprovoked attacks and accusations against China, accusing US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of maliciously creating political confrontation and smearing Beijing.
Pompeo visited Japan and called for deeper cooperation with Australia, India and Japan to counter China’s growing regional influence.
“Pompeo has repeatedly fabricated lies about China and maliciously created political confrontation,” the Chinese embassy in Japan said in a statement. “We once again urge the US to abandon its Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice, stop unprovoked accusations and attacks against China and treat relations with China in a constructive manner,” the embassy said.
Pompeo’s East Asia visit, his first in more than a year, coincides with worsening tensions with China. The United States and China, the world’s top two economies, are at loggerheads over a wide range of issues from Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus to its imposition of a new security law in Hong Kong and ambitions in the South China Sea.
Pompeo’s call for the Quad nations of the United States, Japan, India and Australia to form a united front against China’s growing influence is a sensitive subject for its regional allies, which are reliant on China for trade.
Earlier, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Japan on Tuesday to rally support from Washington’s closest allies in Asia, calling for deeper collaboration with Japan, India and Australia as a bulwark against China’s growing regional influence.
The East Asia visit, Pompeo’s first in more than a year, coincides with worsening tensions with China. Yet the call for a united front against Beijing is a sensitive subject for Washington’s allies, which are reliant on China for trade. In comments before the start of a meeting of the Quad grouping of the four nations’ foreign ministers, Pompeo spoke in typically unsparing terms against Beijing’s ruling Chinese Communist Party. That was in contrast to his three counterparts, all of whom avoided calling out China directly.
“As partners in this Quad, it is more critical now than ever that we collaborate to protect our people and partners from the CCP’s exploitation, corruption and coercion,” Pompeo said.
“We see it in the South and East China Seas, the Mekong, the Himalayas, the Taiwan Strait.” China has denounced the Quad as an attempt to contain its development. The four nations in the grouping stated their support for a free and open Indo-Pacific. In an interview with Japan’s Nikkei newspaper, Pompeo spoke of formalising and potentially broadening the Quad grouping.
“Once we’ve institutionalized what we’re doing – the four of us together we can begin to build out a true security framework,” Pompeo told.
