CMC lodges protest against US sanctions

CHINA’S Central Military Commission has lodged solemn representations and protests against sanctions imposed by the United States.

Huang Xueping, deputy head of the CMC’s office for international military cooperation, summoned the acting defense attache at the US Embassy on Saturday evening, a CMC press release said.

On Thursday, the US State Department announced that it would impose sanctions on the Equipment Development Department of the CMC and the department’s director, alleging that China had violated the “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.”

Huang said the military cooperation between China and Russia is normal cooperation between sovereign states that goes in line with international law.

He called the US side’s unreasonable move “a flagrant breach of basic rules of international relations” and “a stark show of hegemonism” that severely harmed relations between China and the US as well as the two countries’ militaries.

China resolutely opposes the US move and will never accept it, Huang said. He said China will immediately recall the Chinese navy commander Shen Jinlong, who is in the US attending the 23rd International Seapower Symposium, and postpone the second meeting of a communication mechanism for the joint staff departments of China and the US, scheduled from tomorrow to Thursday in Beijing.

China demands that the US side should immediately correct its wrongdoing and withdraw the so-called sanctions.

“The Chinese military reserves the right to take further countermeasures,” Huang said.

Meanwhile, Wu Qian, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of National Defense, confirmed that the Chinese military had made solemn representations and protests to the US side.

Wu said the US side has no right to interfere in such practices, and must bear the consequences caused by this act.