China slams US’s bullying rhetoric
THE US is using “rules-based global order” rhetoric in order to maintain its “bullying” and “hegemonic behaviour”, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in a statement yesterday.
“In order to defend ‘America first’, the US can arbitrarily smear, suppress, coerce, and bully other countries without paying any price. This is the order the US wants … But who will believe them now?” Wang asked.
He additionally touched upon the ongoing US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan as an example of Washington’s “selfish” foreign policy. The pull-out led to the Taliban significantly increasing its military activities in the country, which culminated in the insurgents seizing the capital Kabul on August 15 and declaring “the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” shortly thereafter.
Wang’s statement comes after US Vice President Kamala Harris lashed out at Beijing over its drive to claim more South China Sea territories, also pledging Washington’s support for American allies in the region.
In a major foreign policy speech in Singapore yesterday Harris argued “Beijing continues to coerce, to intimidate, and to make claims to the vast majority of the South China Sea” and “Beijing’s actions continue to undermine the rules-based order and threaten the sovereignty of nations”.
“These unlawful claims have been rejected by the 2016 arbitral tribunal decision, and Beijing’s actions continue to undermine the rules-based order and threaten sovereignty of nations”, the vice president, on a week-long tour of Southeast Asia, added.
She was apparently referring to a UN arbitration against Beijing’s territorial claim to the “nine-dash line” covering most of the South China Sea, initiated by the Philippines in 2013.
Beijing refused to acknowledge the tribunal’s decision declining to withdraw from the area after the final ruling in 2016, stating China had no historic rights to claim the “nine-dash line”.
Harris’s remarks come a few weeks after Dai Bing, China’s deputy envoy to the UN, scolded US Secretary of State Antony Blinken over his claims that Beijing is responsible for the “dangerous” situation in the South China Sea and that Beijing’s maritime claims to the area are “unlawful”.
“The US itself is not qualified to make irresponsible remarks on the issue of the South China Sea”, Dai told a UN Security Council meeting on maritime security earlier this month.
Washington, not Beijing “has become the biggest threat to peace and stability in the South China Sea”, the envoy argued.