A screengrab of the encounter between the US and Chinese ships, as captured by NBC News.
Metropolis Desk-
Just hours after warships from the two nations came dangerously close to colliding, China’s military minister accused the United States and its allies of attempting to destabilize the Indo-Pacific on Sunday.
Li Shangfu delivered a fiery address at the Shangri-La Dialogue security meeting in Singapore, accusing the US of “provoking bloc confrontation for self-interest” and asserting that Washington and its allies were making up norms to exert domination over the region.
A “devastating disaster for the world” would result from any “severe confrontation” between the US and China, he further cautioned. Following US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s warning at the same event that a war over Taiwan would be “devastating” and have an “irreparable” negative effect on the international economy, Li issued his warning.
Additionally, it occurred just after the US accused a Chinese cruiser of cutting in front of an American ship participating in a joint drill with the Canadian military in the Taiwan Strait, causing the American ship to slow down to prevent a collision.
A Chinese destroyer had reportedly cut across the USS Chung-Hoon’s bow hours earlier while participating in a joint drill with Canadian and American navy ships in the Taiwan Strait, according to the US Indo-Pacific Command.
The US claims that the Chinese ship passed the USS Chung-Hoon within 150 yards, or less than the length of the Arleigh Burke-class ship itself.
According to a US statement, “Chung-Hoon maintained course and slowed to 10 knots to avoid a collision.”
It claimed that the Chinese ship behaved “unsafely” and broke the nautical “rules of the road” for safe transit in international waters.
A few minutes after Austin’s speech on Saturday, People’s Liberation Army Lieutenant General Jing Jianfeng told CCTV that the US defense secretary’s remarks about Taiwan were “completely wrong.”
Despite never having had sovereignty over the island, China’s ruling Communist Party claims Taiwan as part of its territory, and the frequency of its military drills near and around the island has sparked worries about how far it will go to enforce this claim. China’s President Xi Jinping has explicitly said that using force is not ruled out.
Jing claimed that Washington was attempting to “consolidate hegemony and provoke confrontation,” and added that US activities were jeopardizing regional security and peace.
The US and China’s defense chiefs made their statements at a time when relations between the two nations are tight. China recently declined Austin’s invitation to meet at the summit in Singapore, citing US sanctions against Chinese officials and businesses.
Austin mentioned in his speech on Saturday that he and Li smiled at each other at a banquet on Friday night, but he urged Beijing to take further action, claiming that “a cordial handshake over dinner is no substitute” for serious negotiations.
A sign of how deeply the two nations’ relations have deteriorated is that the US and Chinese defense chiefs are not set to meet this year.
Austin stated on Thursday that it was “unfortunate” that China turned down a meeting invitation from the US at the conference and expressed concern that the lingering misunderstanding may lead to “an incident that could very, very quickly spiral out of control.”
Austin blasted China for its “alarming number of risky intercepts of US and allied aircraft” in international airspace in his speech on Saturday morning, adding that the US would stand behind allies and partners against “coercion and bullying.”
Source- CNN
