Photo: The Canadian Press
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a meeting of East Asian foreign ministers in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Friday.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday that China’s military exercises targeting Taiwan, including missiles fired into Japan’s exclusive economic zone, represented a “significant escalation” and that he had urged Beijing to move back.
China launched the exercises after a visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan that angered Beijing, which claims the self-ruled island as its own territory.
Blinken told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Cambodia, however, that Pelosi’s visit was peaceful and did not represent a change in US policy toward Taiwan , accusing China of using it as a “pretext to increase provocation”. military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait.”
He said the situation had led to “vigorous communication” during the East Asia Summit meetings in Phnom Penh in which both he and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi participated along with the nations of ASEAN, Russia and others.
“I reiterated the points that we made publicly and directly to the Chinese counterparts in recent days, again, that they should not use the visit as a pretext for war, for escalation, for provocative actions, that there is no possible justification for what they have done and to urge them to cease these actions,” he said.
Blinken did not sit down with Wang individually, but said he had already spoken to the Chinese foreign minister about the possibility of a visit by Pelosi to Taiwan before it took place during the Bali meetings and had made clear the US position.
As the East Asia Summit opened, Wang patted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the shoulder as he entered the room and quickly waved to Lavrov, already seated earlier to occupy his own seat. Lavrov responded with the gesture.
Blinken, who entered the room last, didn’t even look at Lavrov as he sat a half-dozen chairs away, or at Wang, who sat further down at the same table as Lavrov.
Before the Phnom Penh talks, the US State Department indicated that Blinken did not plan to meet individually with either during the course of the meetings.
The talks came a day after WNBA star Brittney Griner was convicted of drug possession and sentenced to nine years in prison by Russia in a politically charged case amid antagonism over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Blinken said the conviction and sentence “compound the injustice that has been done to him.”
“It puts a spotlight on our very significant turnaround with the Russian legal system and the Russian government’s use of wrongful detentions to advance its own agenda by using people as political pawns,” he said.
On Thursday, China canceled a meeting of foreign ministers with Japan to protest a statement by the Group of 7 nations that said there was no justification for Beijing’s military exercises, which virtually encircle Taiwan.
“Japan, along with another member of the G-7 and the EU, made an irresponsible statement accusing China and confusing right and wrong,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in Beijing. .
When Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa began speaking at the East Asia Summit on Friday, both Lavrov and Wang left the room, according to a diplomat in the room who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private session.
After Chinese missile launches into Japan’s economic zone, Blinken said the United States stands in “strong solidarity” with Japan after the “dangerous actions China has taken.”