China issued a stern warning to the United States as a top Beijing official slammed Washington for causing “chaos and tension” in the region.
Chinese Lieutenant General Jing Jianfeng’s outburst came in response to US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin hailed a “new era of security in the Asia-Pacific region.
Lieutenant General Jing slammed the comments, claiming Washington has been trying to maintain its hegemony in the area by establishing even stronger alliances with its neighbours.
Jing branded the US as a “source of chaos and tension” and argued its current regional policy was designed to “create division, provoke confrontation and undermine stability.”
He said: “The real purpose is to merge the small circle into the large circle of the Asia-Pacific version of NATO so as to maintain the hegemony led by the US.”
On Friday he met with Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun, the first in-person meeting between the top defence officials since contacts between the American and Chinese militaries broke down in 2022 after then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, infuriating Beijing.
Neither side budged from their longstanding positions on Taiwan — which China claims as its own and has not ruled out using force to take — and on China’s sweeping claims in the South China Sea, which has led to confrontations between China and other nations in the region, most notably the Philippines.
While declining to detail the specifics of their conversation, Austin said the most important thing was that the two were again talking.
“As long as we’re talking, we’re able to identify those issues that are troublesome and that we want to make sure that we have placed guardrails to ensure there are no misperceptions and no miscalculations … that can spiral out of control,” he said.
