(The Guardian) US warns mistakes could lead to conflict
The United States has condemned China’s launch of 11 ballistic missiles around Taiwan during major military drills as an overreaction to Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island, urging Beijing to reduce tensions.
White House spokesperson John Kirby said: China has chosen to overreact and use the speaker’s visit as a pretext to increase provocative military activity in and around the Taiwan strait. The temperature’s pretty high,” but tensions “can come down very easily by just having the Chinese stop these very aggressive military drills,” he added.
In an interview with MSNBC on Thursday, Kirby said: “We’ve been watching this very, very closely.”
When asked whether Pelosi’s trip triggered China’s military drills, Kirby said: The provocateur here is Beijing. They didn’t have to react this way to what is completely normal travel by congressional members to Taiwan... The Chinese are the ones who are escalating this.”
He also warned the risk of calculation of the drills, saying, “One of the things that’s troublesome about exercises like this or missile launches like this is the risk of calculation, the risk of a mistake that could actually lead to some sort of conflict.”
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said Washington had contacted Beijing “at every level of government” in recent days to call for calm and stability. -- I hope very much that Beijing will not manufacture a crisis or seek a pretext to increase its aggressive military activity,” Blinken told ministers from the 10-member Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean) in Phnom Penh.
The United States has condemned China’s launch of 11 ballistic missiles around Taiwan during major military drills as an overreaction to Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island, urging Beijing to reduce tensions.
White House spokesperson John Kirby said: China has chosen to overreact and use the speaker’s visit as a pretext to increase provocative military activity in and around the Taiwan strait. The temperature’s pretty high,” but tensions “can come down very easily by just having the Chinese stop these very aggressive military drills,” he added.
In an interview with MSNBC on Thursday, Kirby said: “We’ve been watching this very, very closely.”
When asked whether Pelosi’s trip triggered China’s military drills, Kirby said: The provocateur here is Beijing. They didn’t have to react this way to what is completely normal travel by congressional members to Taiwan... The Chinese are the ones who are escalating this.”
He also warned the risk of calculation of the drills, saying, “One of the things that’s troublesome about exercises like this or missile launches like this is the risk of calculation, the risk of a mistake that could actually lead to some sort of conflict.”
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said Washington had contacted Beijing “at every level of government” in recent days to call for calm and stability. -- I hope very much that Beijing will not manufacture a crisis or seek a pretext to increase its aggressive military activity,” Blinken told ministers from the 10-member Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean) in Phnom Penh.
