{"id":10726,"date":"2022-08-05T19:55:24","date_gmt":"2022-08-05T17:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/?p=10726"},"modified":"2022-08-05T21:57:13","modified_gmt":"2022-08-05T19:57:13","slug":"blinken-attends-asean-gathering-in-cambodia-calls-chinas-military-drills-near-taiwan-significant-escalation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/blinken-attends-asean-gathering-in-cambodia-calls-chinas-military-drills-near-taiwan-significant-escalation\/","title":{"rendered":"Blinken attends ASEAN gathering in Cambodia, calls China\u2019s military drills near Taiwan \u2018significant escalation\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised concern on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Cambodia that Beijing might be trying to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait with a military response to the controversial visit of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi<\/a> to the island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.S. secretary of state said China’s military drills around Taiwan are provocations and \u201csignificant escalation<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blinked said: \u201cWe\u2019ve seen how Beijing has attempted to change the status quo on Taiwan for some time \u2013 for example, more than doubling the number of aircraft flown over the centerline that separates China and Taiwan over the past two years; pursuing economic coercion, political interference, cyber-attacks against Taiwan.\u00a0Now they\u2019ve taken dangerous acts to a new level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, he emphasized that nothing has changed about the U.S. position on the One China policy and expressed hope that \u201cBeijing will not manufacture a crisis or seek a pretext to increase its aggressive military activity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe oppose any unilateral efforts to change the status quo, especially by force.  We remain committed to our \u201cone China\u201d policy, guided by our commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act, the three Communiqu\u00e9s, and the Six Assurances,\u201d Blinken said<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that \u201cWe and countries around the world believe that escalation serves no one and could have unintended consequences that serve no one’s interests, including ASEAN members, and including China.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne China\u201d policy is the diplomatic acknowledgment of China\u2019s position that there is only one Chinese government and that Taiwan is part of China. Beijing claims sovereignty over Taiwan, a self-governing country of over 23 million people, which China sees as a breakaway province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a group photo with ASEAN officials during the ASEAN-US ministerial meeting at the Sokha Hotel in Phnom Penh on August 4, 2022. (Image Credit: U.S. Embassy in Indonesia)<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u2018China chose to overreact over Pelosi\u2019s visit<\/strong>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blinken said that the United States has \u201cconveyed to the PRC consistently and repeatedly that we do not seek and will not provoke a crisis. President Tsai has said the same thing. China has chosen to overreact and use Speaker Pelosi\u2019s visit as a pretext to increase provocative military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blinken told reporters on the sidelines of the ASEAN meeting said the U.S. House Speaker\u2019s visit was peaceful and there is \u201cno justification\u201d for China’s escalatory military response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blinken said he had\u00a0\u201cvigorous communication\u201d with all of the ASEAN foreign ministers about the Taiwan Strait situation he repeated that China \u201cshould not use the visit as a pretext for escalation, for provocative actions, that there is no possible justification for what they\u2019ve done, and urged them to cease these actions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secretary Blinken traveled to Phnom Penh, Cambodia,\u00a0from August 3-5, to attend the foreign ministers\u2019 meetings for ASEAN-United States Ministerial Meeting, the 12th East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers\u2019 Meeting, and the 29th ASEAN Regional Forum.\u00a0During the meetings, the U.S. and ASEAN countries addressed the pandemic, economic cooperation, climate change response, maritime issues including in the South China Sea, the Burma crisis, and Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China launches live-fire drills around Taiwan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chinese military fired multiple precision missiles toward the northeast and southwestern targets near Taiwan during its military exercise after Pelosi’s visit<\/a>. Some of those missiles landed in the exclusive economic zone of Japan, causing concerns in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"China<\/a>
China launches live-fire drills near Taiwan<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

On August 4, 2022, China\u2019s People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA) started conducting live-fire drills around Taiwan to initiate its large-scale and unprecedented military exercise in the region. The live-fire drills and military exercises would continue until August 7, 2022. According to the Chinese state-owned media outlet, the PLA has engaged more than 100 fighter jets<\/a> and bomber aircraft as well as 10 warships in the waters of the Taiwan Strait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised concern on the sidelines of ASEAN summit in Cambodia that Beijing might be trying to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[124,1,125],"tags":[221,137,380,509,45,443,377,5,485,303,302,169,7],"class_list":["post-10726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-news","category-united-states","tag-asean","tag-asia","tag-asia-pacific","tag-cambodia","tag-china","tag-drills","tag-indo-pacific","tag-military","tag-pla","tag-south-china-sea","tag-south-east-asia","tag-taiwan","tag-u-s"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/US-Secretary-of-State-Antony-Blinken.jpg?fit=690%2C370&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-2N0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10726"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10746,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10726\/revisions\/10746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}