US top diplomat: China acts “more repressive, more aggressive” New border conflicts

Antony Blinken says the goal of the United States is not to have China, but to defend order based on international rules.

An increasingly powerful China is challenging world order, acting “more repressively” at home, and acting “more aggressively” abroad while experiencing growing influence, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blink said in an interview on U.S. television.

“What we’ve seen in recent years is that China is acting more repressively at home and more aggressively abroad. That’s true,” Blinken said in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday.

The top U.S. diplomat said China was acting “increasingly against it,” but asked if Washington was heading toward a military confrontation with Beijing: “It’s against the interests of China and the United States. To that point, or even to go in that direction.”

Biden said competition with China is the biggest challenge in his administration’s foreign policy. In his first speech to Congress last Wednesday, he pledged to maintain a strong U.S. military presence in the Indo-Pacific and promote U.S. technological development.

Biden said he told Chinese President Xi Jinping in the 21st century. Competing to be the dominant power of the century “we welcome competition, and do not seek conflict.”

Blink arrived in London on Sunday for a meeting of G7 foreign ministers China is one of the topics on the agenda.

During the 60 Minutes interview, Blinken said that China is “the only country in the world with a military, economic and diplomatic capacity to weaken or question the order based on the decided rules that we care so much and defend.

“Our goal is not to have China, to hold it, to keep it down; maintaining that order based on rules is a challenge for China. “

Tensions between Washington and Beijing have risen in recent years over trade over human rights issues, including what Washington has described as follows. genocide against most Muslim Uighurs in the far west Xinjiang, repression of pro-democracy politicians and activists in the self-governing island of Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Last month, Blinken said the U.S. was concerned about China’s aggressive action against Taiwan and warned that it would be a “grave mistake” for anyone to try to forcefully change the status quo in the Western Pacific.

The U.S. has long been committed to ensuring that the island has the capacity to defend itself and maintain peace and security under the Taiwan Relations Act.

Taiwan has been complaining in recent months Repeated missions of the Chinese Air Force near the island, which China claims for itself.