Blinken stresses defense of rules-based international order.
U.S. Secretary of State John Blinken arrived in London on Sunday for a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) countries, with China on the agenda. In an interview broadcast Sunday, Blinken said the Chinese Communist Party has recently taken “more provocative actions” abroad and has shown “increasingly confrontational behavior.
In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” before the meeting, Blinken stressed that the U.S. goal is not to “contain the Chinese Communist Party” but to “uphold a rules-based international order. “He said the Chinese Communist Party is posturing to challenge this order. Blinken said that any country intending to challenge this order, the United States will stand up and defend it.
The Biden administration sees competition with the Chinese Communist Party as its greatest diplomatic challenge. In his first address to Congress last Wednesday, Biden pledged to maintain a strong military presence in the Indo-Pacific region and to promote U.S. science and technology.
Blinken said he and Biden “maintain an almost daily dialogue.
Asked by 60 Minutes whether Washington wants to engage in a military confrontation with Beijing, Blinken said, “To get to that point, or even to move in that direction, is seriously against the interests of both the United States and China.”
He added, “What we’ve witnessed over the last few years is the Chinese Communist Party stepping up its repression at home and acting more provocatively abroad. That’s a fact.”
Asked about reports that the Chinese Communist Party has stolen hundreds of billions of dollars or more in U.S. trade secrets and intellectual property, Blinken said the Biden administration is “really concerned” about intellectual property issues.
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