BEIJING (dpa-AFX) – China wants the United States to stay out of the conflict over Taiwan. Responding to warnings from CIA Director William Burns not to underestimate Xi Jinping’s determination to deploy the military, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told the press in Beijing on Friday that Taiwan was solely an “internal China affair”. Nor can it be compared to the conflict over Ukraine.
According to US media reports, the CIA director also said the US knew that Xi Jinping had instructed his military to be ready for an invasion of the island’s democratic republic by 2027. That doesn’t mean he decided to make a conquest that year, but reminds me how serious he is about it, Burns said. China’s president is also drawing lessons from the Ukraine war.
China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman accused the government in Taipei of being responsible for the tensions. Also, some people in the US used the Taiwan issue to contain China. The US should fulfill its commitments not to support Taiwan independence.
The communist leadership regards the island, which has a population of 23 million, as an “inseparable part of China” and is threatening to conquer it. Taiwan, which never belonged to the People’s Republic, has long considered itself independent. The US has committed itself to the island’s defense capability, is supplying weapons and, like the federal government, rejects any violent change in the status quo as unacceptable. Tensions had recently increased.
The new criticism of the United States came shortly before Antony Blinken’s visit to China, who is expected in Beijing on Sunday for the first visit by a US Secretary of State since October 2018.
