US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has urged China to halt its “pressure campaign” against Taiwan. Blinken was speaking at a telephone meeting on Friday with the Chinese government’s top diplomat, Chinese Central Foreign Affairs Commission Director Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪).
Blinken “called on Beijing to cease its pressure campaign against Taiwan and peacefully resolve cross-Strait issues,” US Department of State spokesman Ned Price said in a statement after the phone call.
The meeting came ahead of a summit of the G7 in the UK, in which China is expected to be a top item on the agenda. It was also the first conversation between the two diplomats since they met in-person in Alaska in March.
Yang said the Taiwan issue is “of core interest to China” and that the US should handle it “carefully and appropriately,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in statement yesterday thanked Blinken for voicing support for Taiwan.
The ministry said that Taiwan would continue to collaborate closely with the US based on existing foundations, and contribute to the stability and prosperity of the region.
Blinken and Yang also discussed Hong Kong, North Korea and climate change, Price said.
Blinken also expressed concern over the “ongoing genocide and crimes” against Muslim Uighurs and minority groups in western China’s Xinjiang region.
In other developments, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley at a congressional hearing earlier this week said that the US is capable of defending Taiwan in the event of a People’s Liberation Army invasion.
US Senator Josh Hawley asked whether the US could militarily block an invasion of Taiwan from China if Taiwan could not defend itself on its own.
“I can assure you that we have the capabilities if there were political decisions made in accordance with the [US’] Taiwan Relations Act,” Milley said on Thursday at a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on the Pentagon’s defense authorization request for the forthcoming fiscal year.
The law was enacted by the US Congress in 1979 to maintain commercial, cultural and other unofficial relations between the US and Taiwan after Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. It also requires the US “to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character,” but does not specify whether the US must fight to defend Taiwan.
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