Published 15:42 IST, January 28th 2021
'We will stand with friends': Joe Biden warns China over expansionism in Asia
In just the first week in White House, US President Joe Biden has sent an evident message to China that Washington would oppose any expansionist intentions.
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In just the first week of acquiring the White House, US President Joe Biden has sent an evident message to China that Washington would oppose any expansionist intentions of Beijing in the East and Southeast Asia. In several statements and calls to various world leaders, he and his top security officials have underlined the support for allies Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, indicating that the US would reject China’s disputed territorial claims concerning those regions.
From Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin telling Japanese counterpart Nobuo Kishi that the US “remains opposed to any unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the East China Sea” to Biden telling Japan PM Yoshihide Suga that his administration is committed to defending Japan, it is clear that the US will attempt to limit China’s moves. Apart from calls, three days into Biden administration, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price warned China about menacing Taiwan after Beijing sent more than a dozen military fighters through the island’s air defence zone.
"We will stand with friends and allies to advance our shared prosperity security and values in the Indo-Pacific region - and that includes deepening our ties with Democratic Taiwan," Price said in a statement. "Our commitment to Taiwan is rock-solid."
US-China Can Work Together On Climate
However, despite opposing expansionist agenda of China, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on January 27 noted that the US-China relationship is arguably the “most important one in the world going forward" and stressed on cooperation to work on areas like climate change. “It is not a secret that the relationship between the United States and China is arguably the most important relationship that we have in the world going forward,” he told reporters at his maiden news conference.
“It's going to shape a lot of the future that we all live. And, increasingly, that relationship has some adversarial aspects to it. It has competitive ones and it also still has cooperative ones,” he said. “I think and hope that we'll be able to pursue that. But, that fits within the larger context of our foreign policy and many issues of concern that we have with China, issues that we need to work through.”
15:45 IST, January 28th 2021