BEIJING – President Joe Biden’s government must reverse the “dangerous practice” of showing support for Taiwan, China’s Foreign Minister said on Sunday, while expressing hope that countries could collaborate on “common challenges” like coronavirus and change climate change.
Wang Yi said at a news conference outside the National People’s Congress of China, that Taiwan was “an inalienable part of Chinese territory” and an “impassable red line” for Beijing.
China sees Taiwan as an illegitimate separatist province. When the civil war in China between communists and nationalists ended in 1949, with the former triumphant, the latter established a rival government in Taipei.
The United States has no official relations with Taiwan, but broad informal ties. Former President Donald Trump angered China by sending Cabinet officials to visit Taiwan in a show of support.
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Wang said that China urged the new government to “fully understand the high sensitivity of the Taiwan issue” and “to completely change the previous government’s dangerous practices of ‘crossing the line’ and ‘playing with fire'”.
He added that the Chinese government “has no room for concessions” on the issue and gave no indication as to how Beijing might react if Biden does not change course. However, the government’s Communist Party has threatened to invade if Taiwan declares formal independence or delays negotiations on union with the continent.
His comments came less than a week after Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that China represented “America’s greatest geopolitical test of the 21st century” and was the only country with enough power to jeopardize the current international order. .
“China is the only country with the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to seriously challenge the stable and open international system – all the rules, values and relationships that make the world work the way we want to,” said Blinken, at an address at the State Department on Wednesday.
Seeking to contrast with the previous government, which had a skeptical view of multilateral organizations and came into conflict with several allies, Blinken said that facing the challenge posed by China would require cooperation with international organizations and work with allies and partners, “not denigrating them . “
Wang, who has held the post since 2013, said that China is “willing to discuss and deepen cooperation with the United States with an open mind”, citing common challenges such as the coronavirus pandemic, climate change and spurring global economic recovery.
NBC News approached the State Department for comment.
He also defended the proposed changes in Hong Kong that will strengthen Beijing’s control by reducing its public’s role in the government, and rejected claims that it would erode the autonomy promised to the former British colony when it returned to China in 1997.
Beijing needs to protect Hong Kong’s “transition from chaos to governance”, Wang said.
He also dismissed claims that Beijing’s treatment of predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang is tantamount to genocide.
Human rights groups say more than 1 million people, many of them members of the Uighur minority, have been sent to detention camps. Chinese officials say they are trying to prevent extremism.
Wang said the genocide charges were complete lies fabricated with ulterior motives. He also blamed the “anti-China forces” that, he said, wanted to “undermine Xinjiang’s security and stability and impede China’s development and growth”.
Wang’s comments were an attempt to “break the pattern of the past and relax some of the restrictions so that both countries can find a new direction,” said Dr. Henry Wang Huiyao, president of the China and Globalization Studies Center to NBC News.
However, he admitted that the focus was “on issues about which we don’t have a lot of disagreement.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
Abigail Williams contributed.