US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that China’s military exercises in the Taiwan Strait are “provocative actions” and they represent a “significant escalation” that “have no justification” and stressed that Washington has never wanted to “provoke a crisis.”
“China has chosen to overreact. There is no justification for this extreme and disproportionate response,” Blinken said during a press conference in Phnom Penh, where he is participating until today in the ministerial meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Blinken insisted that there is “no justification” for Chinese military exercises in the wake of the visit to the island on Wednesday by the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. Nancy Pelosi, which has been the hot topic of the meetings held these days in the Cambodian capital.
According to the US Secretary of State, China used Pelosi’s visit, of which she was informed, “as a pretext to increase their provocative military activity” in and around the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense denounced that China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ships and warplanes crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait on Friday, which functions as an unofficial border but is tacitly respected by China and Taiwan, the island. self-governed state whose sovereignty Beijing claims.
The military exercises, which take place in six areas around the island, effectively surrounding it, have included long-range firing practices with conventional missiles, in addition to the aerial deployment of fighters and bombers.
Blinken assured that the US nothing has changed in its policy towards Taiwan and that it does not seek a change in the “status quo” of the island nor does it support its independence.
Taiwan, with whom the US does not maintain official relations, is one of the main sources of conflict between China and the US, mainly because Washington is the main supplier of weapons to the island and would be its greatest military ally. in case of war conflict with the Asian giant.
China insists on “reunifying” the People’s Republic with the island, which has been governed autonomously since the Kuomintang (KMT) nationalists withdrew there in 1949 after losing the civil war against the communists and continued with the regime of the Republic of China, which culminated in the transition to democracy in the 1990s.EFE
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